


stars go down

by astralscrivener



Series: deceit so natural [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura is in her early 20s, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Dubcon Kissing, Electricity, Emotional, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Guilt, Gun Violence, Illnesses, Injury, Kidnapping, Lance/Lotor is one-sided, Lotor is a creep this is not healthy or romantic, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, Needles, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Panic Attacks, Sick Character, Survival, Team as Family, Temporary Character Death, Torture, Vomiting, canon divergence - post-season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2018-12-12 18:49:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 37
Words: 198,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11743020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralscrivener/pseuds/astralscrivener
Summary: the third and final installment of thedeceit so naturaltrilogy.A botched mission to secure an alliance splits up Team Voltron, leaving two paladins to fend for themselves and giving Lotor exactly what he wants, allowing him to finally refocus his efforts on conquering the universe.Around him, people began shouting. Keith looked back, once. A few people were pointing fingers at him. Others turned away in disdain. A few decided to go after him. Keith turned forward again, legs pumping underneath him. He needed to find out where visitors to this planet—the Chancellor’s daughter had called it an outpost—were keeping their ships, because he was going to hijack one and get the fuck out of here.





	1. The One in Which Keith Must Rely on Himself

**Author's Note:**

> I'm ba-aaack!  
> [Series Playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsHj0y1Du16ZTAp5H81cgzGHiGUjn2zZB)  
> This is going to be, guaranteed, the angstiest installment of this trilogy. Just sayin'. :)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith's been kidnapped and isn't having it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHAT IS UP MY DUDES I'VE RETURNED. IT'S 5 AM BUT IF YOU'RE READING THIS THEN YOU PROBABLY ALREADY KNOW I DON'T POST AT NORMAL HUMAN HOURS.
> 
> Okay, listen, I'll _try_ and get some sleep, and not upload as frequently at the _cost_ of my sleep. I still have summer work to do. Next week, I'm going away for four days and I'll have limited computer time. But LISTEN. I WAS EXCITED FOR THIS CHAPTER, OKAY.
> 
> Okie dokie guys, have fun reading, lemme know whatcha think! Chapter 2 coming...whenever!

Chapter 1

            Keith woke up on his side, to missing armor, to chains around his wrists and ankles and a blindfold over his eyes and a muzzle clamped over the bottom half of his face, making it difficult to breathe. The top of the muzzle dug into the scar on the bridge across his nose, and in all likelihood would probably create new scars on his cheeks. In short, Keith hated it and wanted it off. He hated Chancellor Verna’s daughter, and he hated Lotor, and he was going to kill the both of them once he was out of here.

            …He was just having a little trouble pinpointing _here._

            The immediate definition of _here_ was on the ground in some sort of transport vehicle. From the way it rumbled and jolted and bounced and threw Keith back and forth, he came to the conclusion that he was on a planet, and not in a ship. Even the worst ships didn’t try and give him a concussion the way this one was, not unless it was carelessly barreling through an asteroid field.

            The second thing he noted was that he was _alone._ Not once had he felt another body, or heard another person breathe or try to speak. He couldn’t _sense_ anyone, either. The Chancellor’s daughter—Keith realized, angrily, that he’d never even gotten her _name_ —must’ve made sure to transport him alone. She probably told whoever was driving this transport vehicle that he was special. Or something. Paladin. Galran-human hybrid thing. _Precious cargo._

            Which brought Keith to the most important issue: Lotor had taken Lance.

            That purple asshole had knocked Lance out and rendered him unable to even _fight back_. He didn’t even get the chance to know Keith’s fate before Lotor had ordered him unconscious. He didn’t know whether or not Keith was even _alive_. After all, Lotor had expressed his desire to murder Keith time and time again. What would Lotor tell him? And how would Lance react?

            Keith’s hands curled into fists. He knew Lance—Lance would blame himself. That selfless idiot would find some minuscule reason to justify himself taking all of the blame. He’d think this whole situation was his fault, when Keith deserved more of the blame than he did. _Keith_ was the one who couldn’t cover him, after all. If he’d just been able to see that officer coming, if he’d just gotten out of the way, he and Lance could’ve continued fighting back—

            _Enough with the pity party. Blame Lotor for being a dick and blame the Chancellor_ _’s daughter for betraying you, and focus on the situation at hand._

            Right. The situation at hand. He was in some kind of vehicle, alone and unarmed and immobilized, pretty much all of his senses except for his hearing useless to him. His Paladin armor was gone, save for the jumpsuit that he was currently wearing. Lance was in the hands of the emperor. Pidge and Hunk had been attacked, presumably, and Keith had no idea if they’d gotten out of their situation. The team had no idea where Keith was, but probably had a pretty decent idea of what’d happened to Lance.

            Keith needed a way out of here, and then he needed to identify where the hell in the universe he’d been taken. If he’d been brought to his destination, then he was somewhere in the Bovona System. That was a start. The next step was to figure out the planet’s name, and then figure out where that was in relation to the rest of the universe.

            So much easier said than done.

            Keith scowled—though no one would be able to see it, with pretty much his entire face covered—and tried his best to get to his knees. His balance was off, being tied up and blinded, but he managed, sinking back on his legs, a position which would have him losing feeling in about a minute or two. At the very least, his head would stop bouncing against the floor every time the vehicle jolted—

            Keith flew back as the vehicle jolted again, balance completely thrown. His head smacked against the metal flooring of the vehicle. It didn’t render him unconscious, not this time. If Keith had been able to see anything beyond the blindfold, or beyond the pitch darkness of the vehicle, his vision probably would’ve gone black for a moment. Instead, all he got was the wave of nausea that let him know he now potentially had a concussion.

            Great.

            Add that to the laundry list of ridiculous shit he had to deal with.

            _Patience. Yields. Focus._

            He could deal with his head trauma later. He had a more pressing issue at hand: getting himself out of all his binds and gags, and then figuring out how to escape this vehicle. He was a Paladin of Voltron, and he’d be damned if he couldn’t escape a situation like this by himself.

            So, groaning, Keith shifted around, until his body pressed against the side of the vehicle. Okay. That was step one—find something to orient himself with. Step two: get his hands in front of himself. That way, he’d be able to get the blindfold and muzzle off, and then work at the cuffs around his feet. Maybe then he’d be able to undo the ones around his hands.

            _Okay. Take it easy._

            If he did have a concussion—which, he was hoping to every higher power out there that he _didn_ _’t,_ and the nausea came from his lack of sleep and lack of a proper diet and lack of balance and just the shock of hitting his head—then he was about to make his mental situation worse. Just a bit. _Just a bit, dammit. I don_ _’t have time for a concussion._

            Keith sucked in as much of a breath as he could with the muzzle cutting off most of his air supply, and then let himself fall back, going into a roll as he brought his arms forward. He worked his legs through the loop his arms created, until his hands were all the way in front of him.

            Keith chuckled. That was step two down. Step three: blindfold and muzzle.

            As much as Keith wanted to rip this muzzle off and chuck it into oblivion, the blindfold had to come first. He needed his sight back—even if he still wouldn’t be able to see that well due to whatever dim lighting this vehicle had. So he brought his hands to his face and gripped the blindfold, twisting it around until the knot was settled on the bridge of his nose, at which point he began to undo it.

            It didn’t take very long.

            The blindfold fell down Keith’s face and into his lap. He thought about chucking it along with the muzzle, but it was a white scrap of cloth, and maybe it could’ve been useful to him. He’d spent plenty of days out in the desert with limited resources—he’d learned to make do with seemingly useless items. Especially cloth.

            Keith glanced at his leg.

            In the fight back on Tarvin Three, he’d taken a shot by a blaster while he and Lance were still working to find the chancery. While the blaster wound had cauterized itself almost immediately, it was still an exposed wound—one no one had thought to clean up and bandage. Keith still didn’t have a disinfectant on him, but the cloth could at least cover it up and make sure it didn’t take on too much dirt and bacteria.

            _Focus, Kogane._

            He could do that once he’d freed the rest of himself.

            He had his sight back, and had limited mobility. More than before. The next senses he needed back were smell and taste—this muzzle was coming off.

            Keith couldn’t just twist the muzzle around his face as he’d done with the blindfold. The muzzle was metal and had dual clasps on each side, clasps that went around his ears not unlike a surgical mask. He reached around the back of his head as best he could and brushed different spots with his fingers, until he located the locking mechanisms. Two on each side. Four total. At least these were simple, and didn’t seem to require any sort of key. He supposed that was what he got for being kidnapped from the poorest planet in Tarvin’s chain—the Galra had not been gracious enough to give them the advanced tools to keep Keith at bay.

            _That_ _’s what they get for not dealing with a Paladin in ten thousand years. Or a former Galaxy Garrison cadet. Or a Kogane._

            Keith worked at the locking mechanisms, each one opening with a satisfying click, and then the muzzle fell into his lap. He picked it up and set it down gently, as he sucked in deep breaths of fresh air—or, at least, the freshest air this vehicle had to offer. As much as he would have liked to throw the muzzle, he wasn’t about to make a bunch of noise and get himself discovered. Instead, he set to work at his ankles, relieved to find the same locking mechanisms on the cuffs there, as well as on his hands. His handcuffs, he could probably undo with his _teeth._

            On the off chance he couldn’t, and on the off chance he was running out of time, he got to work on the cuffs around his ankles. He’d rather have taken his chances running without use of his hands than trying to hop away.

            He didn’t waste time stretching his legs when the cuffs fell away from his ankles. He got right to work on his wrists. Admittedly, this took much more time than Keith anticipated, and was much sloppier than he’d intended. The locking mechanisms were not the biggest, and kept slipping out of his teeth every time he thought he had a good grip. Finally, though, he worked his left free, and then was able to use his freed hand to open up the cuff on his right.

            When the cuffs fell into his lap, Keith almost whooped in victory.

            He settled for a silent smirk instead, looking down at the cuffs like, _who_ _’s the boss now?_

            A thought came barreling into him too quickly to stop, what with his desire to whoop and desire to tell off a pair of handcuffs, an _inanimate object:_ Lance was rubbing off on him. And that thought sobered him up right away. He would assess the situation, he would get out of here, he would get away from his captors, and then he’d figure out how to get back in contact with the castle.

            All right. Assess. Keith’s eyes swept the vehicle as best they could in the limited lighting. They were finally starting to adjust, and he could just make out the doors. Double-doors. He must’ve been in a van or truck or some weird Bovona System equivalent of it. If he was as high-priority as he assumed he was, just from the way the Chancellor’s daughter had been talking earlier, he imagined it wouldn’t be easy to get out of here. He was better off waiting for someone to come around and let him out.

            If it came down to it, he could fight with his fists. After all, it’d taken him under a minute to take out three Garrison personnel, including Iverson, the day Shiro returned to Earth.

            For now, Keith sat back against the wall of the truck-van-vehicle-whatever and took the cloth back into his lap. He stretched his injured leg in front of him, fingers gently probing the wound. It’d been a hit near the top-front of his thigh, on his left leg, one of the few places left more vulnerable, with a lack of armor in favor of mobility.

            Between the few hours—at least, Keith _assumed_ it was only a few hours—that passed, and the cauterization of his wound from the same blaster shot that caused it, the pain had gone down considerably—Keith hadn’t noticed it when he woke up, and hardly noticed it when he moved. It was only now, poking it, that the wound stung. Keith twisted the cloth a couple times to give it a double layer, and then pressed the flattest side to the back of his leg, just underneath the wound area. He tied the cloth in front, and then slowly twisted it around his leg.

            Now came the worst part: having the cloth touch the wound.

            With the flat side now at the top of his thigh, Keith gingerly pulled at the white fabric, preemptively gritting his teeth. He hissed as soon as the fabric touched his injury, but worked quickly anyway, fighting back groans of pain as he pulled the fabric fully into position. Once it was in place, he twisted his leg around, to test the integrity of his makeshift bandage.

            It held up.

            The knot stayed tied.

            Keith breathed a sigh of relief and let his head fall back— _gently,_ because he still wasn’t sure whether or not he was concussed—against the metal sides of the transport vehicle. He shut his eyes, but made an effort to stay awake. After being unconscious and vulnerable for hours, he had no desire to fall asleep and end up right back in his binds and gags.

            As always with his free time—okay, maybe not _always,_ but it happened frequently enough, and more and more as time went on—his thoughts wandered to Lance.

            There were several facts Keith was able to gather on Lance’s situation. The first was that Lance hated Lotor. Loathed him. And most importantly, Lance was _afraid of him._ Enough to have nightmares and flashbacks that left him in a cold sweat. And that was after just a day and a half of being with him.

            The second was that Lotor was still creepily obsessed with Lance. Obsessed to the point where Lotor would abandon the Lions and the castle and the rest of the Paladins in a concentrated effort to get to Lance, and would mow down anyone who stood in his way. Especially Keith.

            Keith was going to kill him at the first opportunity, all else be damned.

            Fact three: Lance had been taken onto the ship unconscious. Completely vulnerable in the same way Keith had been aboard this vehicle. Like Keith, Lance had likely had his armor taken away. Hell, the empire probably had _Keith_ _’s_ armor. And bayard. And lion. And Keith was not a fan of these facts.

            This begged the question: how roughly was Lotor treating him? His creepy obsession could not be called love—it was _far, far_ from it. But at the very least, Lotor didn’t want Lance _dead_ , which meant he was alive. The question was, was he being cared for? Was he being given food and water? Was he being interrogated? Lotor went after Lance _despite_ the “betrayal,” and Keith half-hoped that meant Lotor was over it and would be willing to start anew.

            It would give Lance leeway, and a chance to either kill the guy or escape. Or both.

            However, it would _also_ mean that, just as when Lance had been running around pretending to be Jeremy Ortega, Lotor would probably be at his side every waking minute, and was probably touching Lance and trying to make a move on Lance and _Keith was definitely going to kill this guy,_ because he knew that Lance would be uncomfortable as _hell,_ but he probably wouldn’t have a _choice._

            Keith moaned softly, a noise made out of sheer frustration. He hated this the same way he’d hated it after he’d been kicked out of the Garrison: the helplessness, the not being able to _do_ anything, because he was too busy fending for himself with his limited resources. After word reached him of the Kerberos mission’s failure, and the news that it was _pilot error,_ and that the crew was presumed _dead,_ Keith lost it and decked Iverson. And then he’d been dishonorably discharged—a _fancy_ term Iverson sneered at him which meant _expelled, kicked out, get your ass off of this property before I have you forcibly removed_ —from the Galaxy Garrison, losing his one chance of getting to the bottom of what happened to Shiro and his crew.

            He spent his first weeks in the desert beating himself up for not being better. He spent them not sleeping. He spent them on reckless speeder rides over the dunes and over rocky outcroppings and driving over cliffsides—and _yes,_ he’d gotten a concussion then, and had to drag himself back to his shack in the midday sun. He spent them being an absolute disaster of a human being before the Blue Lion’s energy called to him, and gave him something to do with his time.

            The same thing was now happening to him with Lance’s situation. He was planets, potentially _galaxies,_ away from Lance, without his armor or bayard or lion or team. Possibly concussed. Injured in the leg. Running on too little sleep and too little sustenance. He still had to make an escape from this place, and get past his captor—or _captors,_ there were probably multiple people waiting to apprehend him—and then figure out how to get into contact with the castle.

            That left out the many variables, like what the planet he was on was like, or what the people were like, or whether people who saw him would turn him in. Lotor _had_ placed a bounty on the Paladins before, or at least, on the Lions. He wondered if it applied to him still, or if people here interpreted it that way.

            Keith dragged himself out of his thoughts as he felt the vehicle lurch to a halt. He stood, bracing himself against the wall for support, testing his legs. A little shaky, but that was understandable. As long as he could stay on two feet and fight back, he would be good.

            _You fought three Garrison personnel._ Before _you had your Paladin training._

            Keith listened hard, to doors slamming and people moving.

            Okay. So far, it sounded like he was right. It _was_ something like a truck or a van.

            Keith leaned against the wall of the truck, close to the door. If he could slip by the side, assuming these people opened the doors and stood near the center of the vehicle, he could make a getaway without having to throw a single punch. He just had to be faster than these people.

            Curiously, his eyes drifted upward.

            Was vaulting over the top of the roof a possibility?

            Keith snapped back to reality, to the _here and now,_ to the immediate present, at the sound of people talking in some alien language he didn’t recognize. The voices got louder, and then reached their peak as footsteps ceased just outside of the doors to the back of the truck. Keith tensed, listening to different locks click and slide around.

            And then one door opened, letting in harsh light.

            Keith blinked— _my eyes need to adjust and they need to adjust_ now—and took in the sight of the people in front of him as quickly as he could. More humanoid in form. Like Earthlings. Or those people from that one planet—what had it been called, Puig? Whatever. Keith could take on humanoids. Even when they were pointing blasters at his face.

            He rushed for the edge of the vehicle and jumped, kicking out with his legs as his fingers locked onto the roof. He pulled himself up, arms protesting the whole time. There were less people than Keith had anticipated, and they seemed much too shocked to get off a good shot at him. He made it onto the roof and landed solidly on two feet, crouching to avoid more blaster fire. Up here, with the light not as intense, as his eyes got used to it, he counted three people.

            His eyes darted to the sides, quickly, to assess the area.

            A damn marketplace, and even from here, Keith could see people being carted around in chains. Anyone who wasn’t dealing with people— _slaves,_ Keith’s mind whispered—was dealing with tools, spare parts, or strange chemicals. When the Chancellor’s daughter had said Keith was being sold off to scientists, she wasn’t kidding.

            _Okay. Breathe. Get away._

            Keith sucked in a deep breath and leapt down from the top of the vehicle, going into a drop-kick that took down one of the people who’d been kidnapping him. As soon as Keith came back up, he swung a fist out at the person on his left, socking them right in their eye. They staggered back, and Keith wrenched their gun from their stunned, loose grasp. He whirled around, the butt of the gun flying out at the last attacker, one who tried to squeeze off a shot at him. The shot went wide, and missed him by too many inches.

            As soon as that one was down, Keith tore from the scene, stumbling a few feet before his legs decided to actually work.

            The cloth from his face stayed in place, for the most part. Every time he moved, it would shift just a little bit, constantly chafing against his injury, but he could deal. As long as it covered it up from the elements. Out here, the elements seemed to be dirt and grass. This planet was Earth-like, but not completely. The grass had a pinkish hue to it, and the sky was closer to purple than blue.

            Keith would take it.

            Around him, people began shouting. Keith looked back, once. A few people were pointing fingers at him. Others turned away in disdain. A few decided to go after him. Keith turned forward again, legs pumping underneath him. He needed to find out where visitors to this planet—the Chancellor’s daughter had called it an outpost—were keeping their ships, because he was going to hijack one and get the fuck out of here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY I PROMISE I'LL TRY AND GET SLEEP NOW.


	2. The One in Which Everyone is Having a Bad Time™

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We rewind and see what was happening with the rest of Team Voltron during the ill-fated Battle of Tarvin, and some other friends are dealing with a pretty shitty situation. Where are Lance and Keith? That's a question for another day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YO, GUYS, I AM SO SORRY THIS WAS NOT UP SOONER. I especially apologize to everyone who's been like "Wow you update so fast this is a dream!!" only to have me disappear for four days.
> 
> It's not like I haven't been doing stuff!! I'm fixing my sleep schedule (which, I'm exhausted, it's 12:42 AM at the time of me writing this, I'm going to bed soon), so no more 4 AM writing sessions. Honestly, though, I love being up early.
> 
> I'm still working on chapter one of the beach resort au as well as some outlining stuff, so that _might_ be up within the next week? If it does go up, I don't know how often I'll update it, because this fanfic is taking priority. I'm also writing a one-shot, but I don't know if I'll ever finish. It's mostly been me toying around with present tense (which I used to write in, back in my Hunger Games fandom days, but not much anymore), and I'm not really sure if I like it. It seems rushed to me. IDK.
> 
> ALSO, SUMMER WORK! I have three weeks (not even) of summer left. Did you guys know that B.F. Skinner and the Behaviorism movement in psychology are the reason psychological animal testing increased? Yeah, he thought animals were better test subjects than humans because you have a lot more control over them! (This guy was kinda sadistic, in my opinion, just from what my textbook told me. ...I'm getting more fanfic ideas, help.)
> 
> ANYWAY, (was anyone even reading the above portions???) I won't keep you any longer!! Here's chapter 2!

Chapter 2

            The first reports came into Tarvin Two while Allura was still at the podium. Chancellor Verna held up a hand, face visibly distressed, and Allura stopped talking at once. Murmurs started up around the room, computer screens frantically blinking, the large screen behind Verna filling with static like a broken TV. Allura looked back, at Shiro and Coran. Shiro turned toward the wall and hunched in over himself, switching on his comms.

            “Team, what’s going on?” he whispered.

            More static screeched in his ears, broken up by unintelligible noises. Shiro pressed his head against the wall and shut his eyes. “Team. Can _anyone_ hear me?”

            He went through his team’s names one by one—Keith, Pidge, Hunk, Lance—but none of them answered him. He pushed away from the wall and met gazes with a concerned Coran, a shake of his head the only indication of the situation. Then Shiro swung his eyes toward Allura, and repeated the motion, though he knew she could hear everything through her earrings. Her fingers tightened on the sides of the podium, her eyes narrowed, and she looked back at Chancellor Verna, who was typing away at her computer, slitted eyes flitting over the data.

             “We need to help the team,” Shiro said, voice low. “Do you think they’ll let us out of this meeting if we ask them?”

            Before Allura could respond to Shiro, or ask Chancellor Verna if they could leave, every screen in the room went dark, the dim lights above and on the walls winking out. Shiro’s bayard materialized in his left hand, deactivated. He’d been tense before, and tensed further now, mind automatically switching into battle mode. Assess the situation. Make a plan. Execute the plan.

            There still wasn’t a solid indication that they’d been betrayed, so the Tarvinians were still friendly. For now. Most were unarmed, but this was their base, and it was _loaded_ with guards. Shiro’s main objectives then became getting Coran and Allura to the castle safely. _Neither_ of them were armed. Neither of them had had _reason_ to be armed.

            “Everyone, please, try and settle!” Chancellor Verna called, in a weak attempt to silence the shouting that had begun. Her efforts were futile. The Tarvinians in the room only fell silent when the screens suddenly came back to life.

            From the shocked whispers going up, Shiro gathered that this was live footage from the chancery on Tarvin One. Again, Chancellor Verna called out for quiet as she swiveled around in her chair. Though the same display was on her computer screen, there was something different about watching it on the big screen with the rest of the representatives.

            Shiro’s heart dropped to the pit of his stomach when he saw the Galra soldiers posted around the chancery, a commander he didn’t recognize standing over the body of whoever’d been in charge there. For the most part, the soldiers appeared relaxed, smirking at each other, as though they were waiting for something to happen. As though they weren’t even aware that there were cameras rolling. All things taken into consideration, Shiro concluded that the Galra hadn’t established this feed.

            “Pidge, Hunk,” Shiro said, voice quiet to keep prying eyes away. “Please, can either of you hear me?”

            Shiro’s metal hand tapped out the seconds on his leg. One. Two. Three. Four. By five he was getting worried. They’d been able to establish a transmission with Tarvinian technology, which, just by his own judgment, Shiro found to be inferior to Altean tech in most aspects. So why weren’t _their_ comms—

            _“Sorry,”_ Hunk said.

            His voice was quiet, but Shiro flooded with relief anyway.

            _“We were in a tight spot,”_ Hunk continued. _“This_ entire place _is filled with Galra soldiers. There are_ _…ah, jeez, there are a_ lot _of bodies, man_ _… We don’t know if we can get out. They’ve spotted Green and Yellow, but they haven’t found us. Pidge is working on hacking into the Galra feeds, and…something happened on Tarvin Three. We don’t know what. But they’re headed for Two. Soon. You need to evacuate the Eruda Center. We have to go.”_

            Shiro’s mind automatically set to work on breaking down what Hunk had told him into pieces, pieces to be shuffled and organized in order of importance, based on how immediately the team could face the consequences of each situation. Tarvin One was filled with soldiers, but Pidge and Hunk were handling themselves for now. Least important. Nothing Shiro could do about that right away, he’d just have to trust that they could get the job done. They were holding out so far. Second issue: something happened on Tarvin Three—something happened to _Lance and Keith._ Shiro couldn’t get to _them,_ either, and didn’t have access to a feed showing what was happening there. Not important, but slightly more important than Pidge and Hunk’s situation, seeing as he had no report on their status. The most pressing issue, then, was an invasion of Tarvin Two. The Eruda Center needed evacuating.

            Shiro looked to Allura again. She stared at him, raising her eyebrows. He gave her a terse nod, and she turned toward Chancellor Verna, while Shiro turned to Coran and explained the situation.

            “We can get a good number of them in the castle, but we’ll have to drop them off _somewhere_ safe. We won’t have enough room for everyone on this planet, and certainly not everyone in the chain. And of course, we’ll have to help the other Paladins,” Coran said.

            Helping the others. Shiro did not have a decent enough plan for that yet. It would’ve helped immensely to have a status report from Lance and Keith, but so far, nothing was coming in from them. The most likely scenario was that Allura and Coran took the castle and went to assist Pidge and Hunk—he had a reading on them and would know what the castle was flying into. Shiro could split off in the Black Lion and go find out what happened to Lance and Keith, and what was going on on Tarvin Three.

            “Takashi Shirogane,” Chancellor Verna called, and at the sound of his name the room went silent once more. “Come forward.”

            Shiro met her gaze straight-on, walking down the same set of stairs Allura had, until he joined Allura on the podium platform, the space suddenly much more cramped. Shiro put an arm around Allura’s waist, to steady the both of them as they looked up at the Chancellor.

            “From what I’ve gathered from the princess, this center needs evacuating, and your friends need aid,” Chancellor Verna said, leaning forward.

            “Yes,” Shiro confirmed.

            “I understand you have a plan,” the Chancellor went on. “Should we gathered here see this plan agreeable, we may be able to provide military aid from the base on this planet. We can also attempt to get into contact with Tarvin Four, although that part may be impossible until all communications are back online. So, state your plan, please.”

            Shiro exchanged a look with Allura, and then launched straight into his explanation.

* * *

            Pidge and Hunk were stuck in a small control room, one that was hardly bigger than a closet. As Pidge was too busy hacking into the computer systems and trying to get communications between all of the Tarvins, as well as between the Paladins, back online, Hunk was stuck on guard duty, although there wasn’t much room for _guard duty_ to be any sort of effective if they were found out.

            “Whoever designed this communication system needs to be fired,” Pidge muttered. “I don’t know how much easier they could’ve made it for people like the Galra to dismantle. And now there are Galra signals scrambling _everything,_ but we don’t have our lions to take down the ships, because our lions are surrounded, and if they take our lions I _might fight someone._ ”

            Hunk raised his eyebrows.

            “Okay, Pidge, I won’t tell you to calm down, because I know it’ll piss you off even more, but you need to at least take a few deep breaths. You can do this,” he said.

            Pidge huffed and kept typing away at the computer in front of her, the blinking strings of numbers and letters reflecting off the visor of her helmet. After another few minutes, Pidge let out a quiet string of swearwords, and somewhere in the building, an alarm went off.

            “Please tell me you set off that alarm on purpose,” Hunk whispered.

            Pidge started pounding harder at the keys in front of her.

            “Whatever makes you feel better,” she replied, eyes never leaving the screen. “By the way, there’s like, a forty-seven percent chance we could have visitors in the next two minutes. You know. If they trace that signal back here. Just a head’s up.”

            “Oh. Great,” Hunk said. “Yeah. Okay. That’s fine. When they show up, I’ll just tell them we’re not home. Maybe they’ll go away.”

            “That’s the spirit.”

            Hunk shook his head at Pidge’s attitude, but he wasn’t going to discuss this any further. Instead, he started tuning Pidge out, turning his attention toward the sounds coming from the rest of the building, preparing himself to shield Pidge in case they _were_ to get discovered.

            It wasn’t like Pidge couldn’t protect herself. If anyone told her that, she probably would’ve had a conniption. But Hunk knew how little sleep she was running on, even with the nap she took before the mission started. She was smaller than all of the other Paladins, the team’s little sister, and Hunk decided a long time ago he’d rather see himself hurt than her.

            A crash above the two Paladins pulled Hunk from his thoughts. His bayard activated in his hand, and Pidge started typing faster at the computer, a feat Hunk hadn’t even thought was possible.

            “Sounds to me like they’re looking for us on the wrong floor,” Pidge muttered, a singsong-ish edge to her voice.

            “You rerouted the signal, didn’t you?” Hunk asked, without turning around.

            “Of course I did. And _now_ I’m getting back into the feeds for the building…uh-huh…yep, mmhmmm… _gotcha._ ”

            Hunk looked over his shoulder; Pidge smirked at the computer screen, the tension melting away—only to return a few minutes later, when her face went slack, as the series of numbers and words changed into a video feed from a Galra ship.

            “Oh fuck, oh _f—Hunk,_ tell Shiro— _fuck!_ ”

Hunk paled as he took in the scenes in front of Pidge. He recognized the ship. He’d been inside of it just a little over a week ago.

            “Pidge…”

            “That’s from just outside of Tarvin Three. You know who went to _fucking Tarvin Three?!_ ”

            Hunk turned on his comms.

            “Shiro, we have a problem. A really, _really big problem_.”

            Behind him, Pidge started pulling up different screens, fingers flying over the keypad, a stream of soft _fucks_ coming out of her mouth.

            _“What’s going on?”_ Shiro asked.

            “Tarvin Three. We figured out what happened.”

            _“What—”_

            “Prince Lotor. His ship is outside of Tarvin Three’s atmosphere, which means either we’ve been betrayed by people living outside of Tarvin Two, by Tarvin Two, or the Galra figured out where we were headed and set up a trap,” Hunk explained.

            “No!” Pidge gasped.

            Hunk flicked his eyes to the computer again, heart dropping to the pit of his stomach. “Oh no.”

            _“Hunk, what do you mean_ oh no _?_ _”_

            Hunk could not make his mouth form words. His brain was still too busy trying to process the feed in front of him, of his best friend being dragged along behind Prince— _Emperor_ , he corrected himself—Lotor, unconscious between two burly soldiers, a bleeding cut in his leg, his helmet gone, blood running down the side of his face.

            _“Hunk—”_

            The sound of another comm channel turning on clicked in Hunk’s ear, followed by Pidge’s voice: “Sh-Shiro, they’ve got Lance. I-I don’t see Keith, but they…they have Lance.”

            In the background of Shiro’s feed, Hunk could hardly make out Allura’s voice. She was talking fast and was too far from Shiro for his mic to pick up on.

            _“Okay,”_ Shiro said, and it sounded to Hunk like he was trying to keep his voice from shaking, _“Allura, Coran, and I are trying to get people into the castle, but I’m going to the Black Lion now. I’ll see if I can make it before Lotor gets away. You said you didn’t see Keith?”_

            “No Keith,” Pidge confirmed. “More soldiers are boarding…a-and now the hatch is sealing…where…Shiro, they don’t have Keith at all. You need—you need to get there. Fast. They, they’re…they’re leaving, _Shiro_ —”

            _“I’m trying, Pidge. And I’m ordering you and Hunk to get out of there and get back to the castle as soon as you can. Chancellor Verna knows all of you were under attack. She said she’s going to try and get military aid to us, but…I don’t know if it’ll be enough.”_

            “But Keith—” Pidge started, only to be cut off with a long, heavy sigh from Shiro’s end of the comms. Hunk brought a hand down on Pidge’s shoulder. His mouth drew into a tight-lipped frown when she turned to look at him. He shook his head—no point in arguing. They had to go.

            Pidge stared for a moment, lips parted slightly, before she shut her mouth and narrowed her eyes and nodded. They had a mission. They couldn’t rescue Lance and find out what the hell was happening with Keith if they were caught up in an ambush and captured.

* * *

            Not being dead kind of surprised Tiva, if she was honest about it.

            Even more surprising was the fact that she was being dragged along in chains by a native of Ruovi, a small planet on the fringe of some system called the Bovona System along with the other guards and officers she’d been trapped in her pod with. After being shot out of the sky, and then being woken up with a gun to her forehead, Tiva expected a swift execution. Not a jail sentence for attempting to escape facing justice for her crimes.

            Tiva almost laughed.

            This whole situation was _ridiculous._

            The accusations that’d been thrown in her face were even _more_ ridiculous. Her supposed _crimes_ involved being in league with the emperor (Tiva had been smothering giggles), and the unlawful invasion of the Tarvin planetary chain (which meant Tiva and the others had been out of it for at least a day and half, thank you for that information, kind sir), and assisting the emperor in hacking through the computer systems and illegally downloading sensitive information from every planet the Empire had ransacked in the last few weeks ( _well,_ _actually,_ Tiva had wanted to say). She was supposedly guilty of all of that, plus the murder of innocent civilians.

            At least, according to the _diaries_ found logged in the pod computers, alongside the coordinates for a gas giant.

            _The Empire never surrenders. Triumph or death._

            The story was, apparently, she and the officers in her pod were seeking out suicide in the name of the Empire, because members of the Empire never died on anything other than their own terms. Not if they wanted to be held in the emperor’s good graces. Tiva’s group had supposedly gotten into a chase with another cruiser, and had planned to outrun it right into a gas giant to avoid being caught, because they were running low on fuel.

            Tiva knew Lotor was always a bit over-the-top, but not like _this._ Was _this_ what he did with his free time, when he wasn’t pouting over the Blue Paladin?

            Anyway, the native Ruovin was now describing his people’s epic takedown of their ship, an expert shot that brought it down over some kind of liquid, allowing the ship to remain in one piece, the data and passengers preserved. Now, she and her…comrades? No. She’d been spending most of her time trying to take down these people from the inside out. Unfortunate Companions was the term she’d use for now. She and her Unfortunate Companions were now being hauled off to jail, no trial.

            Tiva briefly wondered what would happen if she tried to tell this guy she was with the Blade of Marmora. She didn’t have her Blade knife on her to prove it, but she did have a lot of information about them, filed away neatly in her head. Of course, revealing Blade secrets was punishable anywhere from expulsion from the group to outright death (it really depended on how stressed out Kolivan was that given week), so Tiva didn’t really think that would work out well.

            Whatever.

            She was alive, at least.

            _Bix and Cosso are not,_ the thought suddenly came to her. Bix and Cosso, too, were probably sent off to the same cruel fate, and Tiva really didn’t think that they’d have the same wild stroke of luck that she did. Which meant they were probably dead by now, crushed under the gravity of some other gas giant. Which meant of Tiva’s group of friends, dwindling in number ever since Lotor’s manhunt for the Blade members on his ship began, was down to two.

            Mirak, all alone on that ship, probably thought she was the sole survivor.

            _I need to get back to that ship._

            For now, though, Tiva was resigned to figuring out how to bust out of jail, on a random planet, with no supplies whatsoever.

            _Simple enough,_ Tiva thought to herself, eyes sweeping over the unfortunate five souls who’d gotten stuck with _her._

            _I_ _’ll figure something out._

* * *

            So.

            Some fool had let it slip to Lotor that Haggar was not, in fact, dead.

            Haggar saw the disappointment in Lotor’s face as she stood before a transmission screen. The insolent boy sat on a throne, a throne Haggar recognized as one back at Central Command, someplace Lotor hadn’t been in _months._ Not since he first went after Voltron. Which meant he’d had some sort of victory recently.

            A _major_ victory.

            _“Haggar. Still alive and kicking. Princess Allura and the Blue Paladin didn’t take you out after all,”_ Lotor said, cocking his head to the side. It must have been his go-to intimidation tactic, but he must have forgotten who he was speaking to. Lotor did not _intimidate_ Haggar. Lotor was a thorn in her side she should’ve taken out when she had the chance.

            “Lotor. Back at Central Command for once. What happened?” Haggar asked.

            She didn’t have time to beat around the bush. If Lotor was making progress without her, taking him out would have more consequences than she intended to deal with.

            _“Oh, you know,”_ Lotor said. _“Sweeping success, rooting out my enemies, capturing some Paladins, basically sentencing one of them to death. The usual.”_

            Basically sentencing one to death, huh?

            “Not _killing?_ ” Haggar asked. “Like you’ve been wanting to do ever since he got away the first time? I want exact answers, _Prince Lotor._ ”

            That should’ve jarred him.

            Should’ve.

            _“That’s_ Emperor Lotor _to you, Haggar. As my former right hand, you of all people should know. Anyway, if you_ really _must know what grand victories I_ _’ve secured…my forces are currently working on taking over the Tarvin planetary chain. We’ve driven out the Green, Black, and Yellow Paladins, I’ve captured the Blue One, and the Red One is probably dying in some far corner of the universe. I_ was _going to kill him myself, but_ _…certain people needed persuasion to work with me. He was the price, and I paid it in full,”_ Lotor said.

            He never once shifted from his position on his throne—leaning to one side, elbow on an armrest, head propped on a balled fist. The only difference between now and the start of this transmission was that his look of disappointment at Haggar still being alive had been replaced with a smug grin, a satisfaction at knowing he was progressing just fine without his head druid.

            _“You know,”_ Lotor went on, when Haggar was too stunned to say anything, because how the hell was she going to knock him down twenty pegs when he’d done all that without her assistance, _“it seems I don’t need you anymore, Haggar. All you’ve done is act as a thorn in my side, anyway. You hate me, and I know I’m not wrong in making that statement. You know what else I know? You aren’t getting better in that Eddulan military hospital.”_

            The nurses and doctors here had apparently told Lotor more than Haggar had previously thought.

            “And what does my well-being matter to you?” Haggar demanded.

            Lotor smiled, eyes drifting away from the screen and off into space.

            _“Oh, nothing, really. It's just, now that I’ve seen the reports from your hospital, I know for a_ fact _that it_ _’s a place people go to die,”_ Lotor said.

            Haggar would not let herself go pale, would not let her face go slack, would not tense up.

            Not even when Lotor smirked directly into the screen, directly at _her,_ the exact look he’d worn when he murdered Zarkon in his deathbed.

            _“I bet you wish you could have been more loyal, now, hmm? Goodbye, Haggar. I’ll see you again one day.”_

            Lotor cut off the transmission, at the same time Haggar heard the door to her hospital room slide open, and the traitorous nurse who’d spoken to her the day prior walked in. This time, there was no concern or sympathy on her face. Lightning swirled and crackled around Haggar’s fingertips as she faced the nurse.

            Even feeling her power ebbing, feeling her body protest, Haggar refused to die.

            Not without a fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know when chapter 3 will be. I'm _pretty sure_ I know who we're seeing in chapter 3, so if I stick with it and don't scrap the chapter halfway through...it'll be up Sunday earliest, probably? Monday or Tuesday latest?
> 
> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ I don't know! See you whenever!!


	3. The One in Which Everyone Feels Guilty (Except the People Who Actually Are)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We check in with Lotor and Team Voltron, minus one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started feeling tired at 9 PM and it's currently 9:50 PM. Honestly, who am I?
> 
> ANYWAY HEY IT'S SUNDAY THIS CHAPTER ISN'T TWO DAYS LATE. I wrote 2.5k words for this almost immediately after posting chapter 2, then took a couple days to get the next 1.2k down. I hope you all like it!!
> 
> I have a question about the beach resort au for you all (read "you all" as "those interested"), but I'll pose it at the end. So for now, here's chapter three!!

Chapter 3

            Lotor had not been this giddy since the day he’d mistakenly thought he’d killed the Red Paladin, but _oh,_ the tables were finally turning in his favor. The Paladins had been forced to retreat and leave the rest of Tarvin to the mercy of his glorious empire, down two of their own members, without two of their lions, unable to form the menace known to many as Voltron, Defender of the Universe. The Red Paladin was finally out of his hair—alone, defenseless, and without any way to get back…well, _home_ to him would have been _Earth,_ but seeing as he’d spent the last half year (at least) in space as the right arm of Voltron…

            Lotor huffed.

            Without any way to get back to the Castle of Lions. There. That was better.

            Best of all, the Blue Paladin was finally back where he belonged—with Lotor, at the heart of the Empire. Even better than that— _okay, so that hadn_ _’t been the_ best _of all_ —he had no idea who he really was. He now believed he was Jeremy Ortega, spy for the Empire, lover and right hand of the Emperor himself. Lotor had been duped by him before, but as he’d just stated… _the tables have turned._

            Now, Lotor was no expert on amnesia, or head trauma in general, really, seeing as his father, upon exiling him, had made it a point that Lotor was to be kept away from battle at any and all costs. He’d never experienced amnesia, or a concussion. He’d never aided any soldier in his ranks who’d been a victim to anything of that sort. Lotor didn’t know how long the Blue Paladin’s issue was going to last, or what was going to happen when his memory came back.

            _If_ his memory came back.

            All he knew was that at the moment, and for however long this lasted, the Blue Paladin was his. No more Red Paladin or the rest of Team Voltron to get in his way. Perhaps, if he started to remember his old life, he could just send him to the druids, claiming to be assisting him in recovering his memory. Sure, Haggar wasn’t here, and was never coming back. But the other druids could do just as fine a job of diving into his mind and pulling some strings. It wasn’t like Lotor was asking them to corrupt the lions, sitting in their hangars.

            …That, he could _not_ do without Haggar, but that method of capturing Voltron had failed twice now, so it wasn’t really like it mattered.

            Lotor, so lost in his thoughts, almost missed the door to Jeremy’s room. It wasn’t too far down the hall from his throne room, or from the bridge, or from Lotor’s normal sleeping chambers. This way, Lotor could still be close to Jeremy, even when Jeremy wasn’t immediately at his side. He also _may_ have modified the chambers, just in case his memory were to come back in the middle of the day. The door opened from the outside, and required a handprint from someone with Galran blood, which, last time Lotor checked, Jeremy did not have.

            In the event his memory _didn_ _’t_ come back, then it served as no more than a safety precaution. Especially if Team Voltron, now without their only member who’d had Galran blood, decided to come and rescue him. Not even the hacking skills of the Green Paladin, or the arm of a destroyed robotic sentry, or the GalraTech arm the Black Paladin possessed, would be able to get this door open. Yes, one of Lotor’s officers could open it, but he’d rooted out his traitors.

            At least, he should’ve.

            He’d sent away thirty-seven members of his crew, and killed at least twelve in the arena, plus the other Blade members before that…

            He should have been fine.

            Content with that thought, Lotor knocked on the door. After a few moments of silence, Lotor knocked again. Still, he received no response—no one telling him to go away, and no one telling him to come in. He frowned, and knocked a third time.

            “Jeremy, are you all right in there?” Lotor asked, resting his head against the metal of the door. “I’m coming in.”

            He still knocked one more time, for good measure, and when no one answered him, he placed his hand on the print pad. The door opened under his touch, and Lotor stepped inside. The main lights in here were off, the room illuminated only by the glow of purple lines running across the walls. In the dimness, Lotor could just make out the shape of Jeremy, asleep in the four-poster bed.

            Lotor approached the bed and slowly eased himself onto the edge of it. He brought a hand to Jeremy’s head and slowly raked his fingers through Jeremy’s hair. After a dobosh or two of this, Jeremy stirred. He moaned softly and rolled over, exposing his face. His eyelids slowly fluttered open, pupils dilating in the dark.

            “L-Lotor?” he whispered.

            “Yes, my love,” Lotor whispered, bringing a hand to Jeremy’s cheek. “Did I wake you?”

            The question took a moment to process, and then Jeremy replied, “…Yeah, kinda.”

            Even so, he pressed his face into Lotor’s hand, probably seeking its warmth. Lotor knew humans had a tendency to look for warmth wherever they could get it. It would explain, then, their fixation upon touch, and sometimes their strange pyromania.

            “My apologies,” Lotor said. “Would you like to be left alone, then?”

            Jeremy nodded vaguely, like he was slipping back under sleep’s grip. “Mm. Still…still recovering…”

            “I see,” Lotor said.

            He leaned down, and pressed a quick kiss to Jeremy’s lips before he stood up and slipped out of the room. It made sense, of course—he _had_ suffered through trauma, and _had_ been hit over the head, and _had_ taken a slice to the leg, all injuries Lotor had made his officers clean up when they first boarded the ship. At that point, Lotor hadn’t known of the Blue Paladin’s amnesia, but he still wasn’t about to have him bleed out and die.

            Lotor had spent too many resources to get the Blue Paladin to have him die.

            Lotor cast one last glance at the Blue Paladin over his shoulder as he left, and shut the door behind him. He would just have to come back later, when he was in better spirits.

* * *

            When he was eight years old, Lance missed two straight weeks of school for a stomachache he’d never had. He’d been so committed to his role that he’d rarely gotten out of bed, and turned down playdates with his friends on the weekend, and had eaten so little that he probably _actually_ was sick for a while. Only one of his siblings realized his charade, but by then, he was nine days in and wasn’t about to quit, and he’d bribed that sibling to stay quiet. And they did. And Lance got away with it, and to this day, his mother never knew that Lance had pulled a fast one on her.

            When he was in the seventh grade, all of twelve-going-on-thirteen, Lance convinced one of his teachers he’d gotten a ninety-seven percent on a research paper he never turned in. It wasn’t like he _wanted_ to miss that assignment—he’d had three weeks to do it. But flu season was bad that year, and his mom had come down with it, and there were no less than three kids per day in the McClain household who were also completely out of commission. Lance had had to step up and take care of them. He didn’t have time to write a research paper. When his teacher confronted him about it—you know, two weeks after he’d collected the papers, when he _actually_ started to grade them—he asked Lance about it. Lance, a good student, a hard worker, lied right then and there. _I turned it in. You must have misplaced it._

            The teacher bought it. Another two weeks later, when it was time for them to be handed back, and Lance didn’t get one, he lied again, and rattled off fact after fact about space, because this research paper just so happened to be on astronomy, and Lance loved astronomy. He didn’t _need_ to write a research paper. His teacher shrugged and accepted it, and that was how Lance’s seventh grade science grade remained an A+ for the year.

            And then, of course, Lance was always covering up his feelings of inferiority. For the longest time, it was second nature to use the _fake it_ _‘til ya make it_ mentality to get through his day, acting like he was the best, number one, the greatest fighter pilot in Garrison history. He lied right to his family’s faces, he’d given his niece and nephew false hope for their futures, and no one detected anything amiss. For the longest time, he’d kept his team in the dark to his true feelings about himself—the shame, the feeling of not being good enough.

            And who could forget the first mission on Lotor’s ship?

            So when Lance had come to yesterday, silently, chained in a prison cell on Lotor’s ship, he’d had two options before him. The first was to just be straightforward. No more acting. No more lying. He still wondered how Lotor would’ve reacted to _that_ Lance. The defiant one who didn’t want to be there. He knew Lotor wouldn’t kill him, not by a longshot, not after he’d had the chance to do it on Tarvin Three. Would he have tried to hit on him anyway? Despite knowing Lance wanted nothing to do with it?

            The second option was to use his aching head to his advantage. He had no idea what’d happened to Keith, whether he was somewhere else on that ship, or taken onto another prison ship, or…or _dead_ _…_

            _Keith isn_ _’t dead. You would have felt it._

            _…Right?_

            As soon as he’d realized that, his choice became clear, and he’d “come to” faking a freakout. _No, really, I don_ _’t know who I am! I have absolutely no idea_ where _I am! I_ _’ve never seen this purple, white-haired, abusive prince-emperor-whatever guy in my life!_

            Pretending was still difficult, because Lotor was gross, and Lance hated his guts, but compliance would get him the necessary information faster. And he’d _thought_ compliance would at least give him more access to the ship.

            Finding out his room opened from the _outside only_ had kind of been a nightmare scenario, and Lance _might_ have had to fight off a panic attack, before he reassured himself that he was, if nothing else, still _alive_ , he just needed to give this time. He was a Paladin of Voltron. And Keith needed him…wherever he was. Lotor had been _silent_ about him, which only added to this idea Lance was holding onto, that Keith was still alive. If Lotor had murdered him, he would’ve bragged about it.

            That still begged the question that now plagued Lance’s mind as he slowly sat up in bed, scrubbing a satin sleeve— _I_ _’m going to burn this later_ —at his mouth. Where _was_ Keith? Lance had been knocked out before Keith, back on Tarvin Three, and the words he desperately wanted to tell him never left his mouth.

            Would Lance _ever_ have the chance to tell him?

            He sighed, his breaths silent, and slid back down under the covers, cheeks flushing.

            He had to admit, waking up here was disorienting. He’d heard Lotor knocking at his door and _almost_ screamed, but then he felt the silk against his skin, and the softness of the covers of this bed, and realized that Keith’s body was _not_ pressed against his, but rather, he was all by himself. And then he’d realized where he was, and prayed that if he continued to fake sleep, Lotor would have just…gone away.

            Instead, he’d walked right in and began running his hands through Lance’s hair.

            Lance shivered, despite the warmth of the bed, the warmth radiating from the little cocoon he’d made for himself out of the blankets. Lance had a special relationship with people’s hands in his hair. It reminded him of home. It started with his mom, comforting him when he was young after a nightmare or thunderstorm, something she’d done for all of her children. Then it was his siblings, holding him after a bad day at school, or some other unnecessary complication in his life. Then he’d begun passing it on, to his niece and nephew, and returned the favor to his siblings. At the Garrison, Hunk had even picked up on it. Then, between Shiro still being missing, and Matt and Sam Holt still being somewhere out in the universe, Lance had then passed it onto Pidge, after a rougher-than-intended battle.

            And then it became a common gesture between himself and Keith.

            There was no way Lance was letting Lotor ruin one of the few good things left in his life.

            Lance’s eyes stung with tears, hot and sudden. A sob bubbled up in the back of his throat, and Lance muffled its escape with the blankets, hoping that Lotor wasn’t sitting outside of his door and listening.

            He missed Keith. His chest ached when he thought of the last time he’d _seen_ Keith, before that podium separated them from each others’ view. Keith had been defiant, the whole way through that ordeal, and he’d been trying to do everything in his power to protect Lance.

            _“No. No! Leave him—Lance!_ Don’t touch him! _”_

            _“Keith—”_

            But then there’d been a splitting pain in Lance’s head, and he’d blacked out, and the rest of his words died in his throat, while Keith continued to scream for him, because Keith knew what would happen if Lance was back in Lotor’s grasp. And here he was.

            Lance heaved another sob into the blanket, rolling over and pressing his face into his pillow to further muffle his sounds. He didn’t need anyone walking in and finding him like this, because then his cover would be blown, and he could only imagine how well that’d go down.

            _This is all my fault,_ Lance thought miserably. _I wasn_ _’t watching. I dragged us into that room. I should’ve checked it first. I shouldn’t have gone down. He shouldn’t have needed to protect me._

            _I_ _’m so sorry, Keith._

* * *

            Pidge very nearly lashed out when someone shut her laptop screen in the middle of her work, cutting off her light source, plunging her into the dark. She couldn’t _see,_ that’s how bleary her eyes were, how used to the bright light of her computer screen they’d become. It was taking a bit longer than usual to adjust to the shadows of the lab in the castle sleep cycle.

            “What the hell?” Pidge asked, voice louder than she’d intended. She lifted her glasses and pressed her balled fists into her eyes, galaxies exploding behind her eyelids.

            “Hey, hey, easy there, Pidge,” someone said softly. Pidge recognized Hunk’s voice, and the feeling of his hand on her shoulder.

            Pidge removed her hands from her eyes and blinked the stars away. Now that her eyes were better-adjusted, she could see that it wasn’t just Hunk here, at her side. Shiro, Allura, and Coran had all joined him, forming a half-circle in front of her. She couldn’t say that any of them looked particularly _pleased_ to be here. Especially not Shiro. His arms were crossed, and his face had that tired look about it that Pidge had long ago dubbed the Dad Look, the look of a father disappointed in his child.

            “Pidge,” Shiro said, and Pidge shook her head and put a hand up.

            “I don’t wanna hear it. We have to get them back. I’m not gonna sit around and wait for something to happen,” she said. “Give me back my laptop.”

            “Just hear us out,” Allura said, voice quiet.

            Pidge grumbled and crossed her arms.

            “Look,” Shiro said, “we know we need to find them. We miss them too. But you can’t let yourself get hurt in the process. You missed every meal today, and haven’t touched the food we brought down here.”

            Pidge glanced at the bowl of food goo sitting next to her shut computer. She only had a vague memory of Coran bringing it to her, probably at some point between lunch and dinner.

            “And now,” Shiro went on, “it’s practically the middle of the night. You need to rest, Pidge. We can’t find them if we’re just running on fumes.”

            “I know. But I _can_ _’t sleep,_ Shiro. Lotor has Lance, a-and we don’t even know w-where Keith _is,_ I couldn’t pull _anything useful_ from their computers with the time we had, and…Lance could be being tortured for information and Keith could be _dead_ for all we know! And—”

            “Pidge,” Shiro said, more firmly this time.

            Pidge stopped, eyes wide, lips trembling. She tucked her hands further into her arms—they were shaking.

            Hunk sensed the shift in her demeanor and pulled her into a hug. Pidge buried her face in his shirt and let the waterworks begin.

            Allura frowned; her feet began moving, and the next thing she knew, she was joining in the hug, Coran and Shiro following suit until everyone had enveloped the youngest Paladin.

            “We’re going to get them back, Pidge,” Shiro murmured, after several minutes of silence broken only by Pidge’s crying. “Keith is still out there, we just don’t know where, and we’re going to rescue Lance as soon as we can. But for now, _please_ , get some rest. We’re all in this together, and we _all_ need to be ready for action.”

            “Uh-huh,” came Pidge’s muffled reply.

            Shiro raised his eyes to the rest of the group and met Hunk’s crestfallen gaze. All he could do was shake his head and give Hunk a look with the hope that tomorrow would be better. The hope that tomorrow, they could make some more progress in figuring out how to go about rescuing Lance and finding Keith.

            For now, the team needed to rest.

* * *

            The final battle on Tarvin One wouldn’t stop replaying in Hunk’s mind as he drifted half-awake about the kitchen, body going through the motions of baking cookies. Tonight, baking seemed to do nothing to de-stress him. All he could see in his mind was his narrow escape with Pidge, abandoning the innocent Tarvinians of the city to the terror of the Galra.

            The Galra had found Yellow and Green, while he and Pidge had been infiltrating Tarvin One’s embassy. By some miracle, Hunk and Pidge had managed to race back out of there—lacking the amount of intel they’d been hoping for, _severely_ lacking—to find the Galra still trying to figure out how to take their Lions. Dueling their way to Yellow and Green was chaotic, soldiers and sentries surrounding the area. Pidge’s weapon was short-range, _incredibly_ short-range. It wasn’t like Keith’s sword, where he could put distance between himself and whoever he was dueling. Pidge’s angular katar left no room for error, and with so many people surrounding them, and being on the roof of the embassy, she couldn’t bust out her grappling hook and cable. Not without running the risk of tangling the pair.

            It’d been up to Hunk and his cannon to cut them down a path to their Lions. One misstep had nearly sent Pidge straight to the Galra—he’d left too big an opening between them, and her bayard wasn’t cutting it. Someone had swept her off her feet from behind. Hunk hadn’t hesitated to charge the soldier and blow their head apart.

            He could still see the bloody scene. The explosion played on a loop in his brain, over and over, Pidge screaming, sentries clanging, guns going off in every direction, soldiers yelling orders to take the Green Paladin and forget the two Lions, the hacker of the group would be good enough. Young enough and small enough for Lotor to break easily, they’d said.

            Pidge almost seemed less shaken up about it than he did, but Hunk knew that was why she’d been in the lab, refusing to sleep. And when he’d caught her out of the corner of his eye an hour or so after she’d been sent to bed, sneaking back down there, he hadn’t done anything to stop her. She’d peered into the kitchen, and a look of understanding and solidarity passed between them, and that was that.

            _I almost let her get taken._

            The guilt would not stop. No matter what he did, no matter what he told himself, no matter what reassurances Pidge repeated over the comms as they barreled futilely for Tarvin Three, the guilt would. Not. Stop.

            _It_ _’s my fault,_ Pidge had told him. _I wasn_ _’t watching what was going on. I should’ve been aware of my surroundings. I know my limitations and weaknesses in battle, and I should’ve been doing better to deal with them._

            But now, whenever Hunk heard those words in his head, he heard them in his own voice. He heard them and saw the soldier’s head. He heard them and saw Pidge screaming and trying to electrocute the soldier, without accidentally frying herself in the process. He heard them and felt the panic bear down on him, felt his chest seize up, felt the terror that’d _almost_ paralyzed him, because Voltron was about to be down _three_ Paladins, and if he didn’t act quickly, maybe even _four._

            Hunk almost didn’t hear the oven ding.

            He bent down and opened it up and took the hot tray of cookies out, setting it down on the counter to assess his work, and maybe try and clear away the thoughts of the many ways that battle could’ve ended.

            These cookies were not his greatest batch.

            He could’ve done better.

            _You almost let her get taken._

            Hunk picked up the tray.

            _She could_ _’ve died._

            Hunk approached the trashcan.

            _But she_ _’s not dead. She’s alive. You’re both alive and you’re back at the castle, and the alliance isn’t completely dead._

Then he breezed right past it and headed down for the lab.

            These cookies weren’t his best batch, but they would still be some damn good cookies, and he knew Pidge could use some, too.

            _We_ _’re gonna find them. We’re gonna make everything right._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okie dokie so that was chapter 3, please spill your feelings in the comments if you feel so inclined.
> 
>  **For those interested in this mysterious beach resort au I keep mentioning, I've got a question!**  
>  The beach resort au is going to be written in prose, and since it's a modern au I'll do brief breaks for text messages. However, to get myself into the mood for it (and to give myself something to do when I've been lacking inspiration for _this fanfic_ ), I've jotted down, so far, 4.4k words of just chatfic stuff for it.  
>  **So my question is, would you guys like to see a "bonus content" kind of deal,** where, either once the beach resort au is finished, or when the relevant chapters are posted, I post the chatfic portion of it, as well, in like, a separate fanfic?
> 
> Let me know!! 
> 
> Okay thanks for reading, I'll get chapter four up eventually! Just a head's up, I'm headed out of state on Wednesday, and won't be back until Saturday afternoon, so if the new chapter isn't up before Wednesday, there's a strong chance it won't go up until Saturday or Sunday. So see you then!!


	4. The One in Which Keith and Lance Must Survive, Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Survival by yourself isn't fun. Keith and Lance know this well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **CONTENT WARNINGS FOR THE CHAPTER**  
>  -There's more **swearing** than usual (thanks Keith)   
>  -There is **gun violence** (these guns have bullets, not laser blasts)  
>  -There are two instances of **vomit**  
>  \--If you want to skip them, the first instance is in that paragraph between " _Get up get up get up get up_ " and " _Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck--_ ", and the second instance is in the line beginning with "Lance whirled around".  
> -There is a **panic attack** that occurs, with symptoms described, beginning with the line of repeated "Don't freak out"s and continuing basically through the end of the chapter.
> 
> If anyone needs to skip these scenes, I'll give a summary of the chapter in the end note.
> 
> This fanfic, just looking at my pacing now, is probably gonna be the longest of the trilogy. Right now, we're stretching out scenes that all occur within an hour or so, but later on we'll probably be making some time skips. Right now is just a lot of establishing and things that happen. In case anyone had any pacing concerns.
> 
> Okay, read on, I'll see you at the end of the chapter!

Chapter 4

            One time, when Keith’s expulsion from the Garrison was still fresh, he’d been out in the deeper parts of the desert, on one of his first hunts for the source of the strange energy he would come to find out belonged to the Blue Lion. He’d spent much of the day stumbling over hills and cliffs on foot—his speeder wouldn’t be good for trying to track down a sensitive signal, and he’d wanted to be careful about it. Before he knew what was happening, it was nightfall, and the coyotes had come out to play. Keith, alone and terrified with nothing but his knife for defense, had never run faster in his life, tearing across the desert. The ground under his feet had made the shift from hard-packed, dried-out soil to straight-up sand, and there was a brief moment when Keith thought he was really going to die.

            Since that night, he’d made it a habit: at least once a week, he’d practice running through sand. It shifted and slid underfoot, and Keith wanted to be prepared for another situation like that, when he’d need to make a clean getaway by sprinting across unhelpful terrain.

            It made running on normal old dirt and grass seem like floating, once Keith fell into the groove, in-tune with his body, despite the pounding of his head. The distance between him and the few strangers who’d tried to tail him stretched out, until Keith was so far ahead that when he glanced back, he could hardly see them splitting off and giving up. He didn’t waste time—he whipped his head forward again and kept going. He couldn’t give up a precious head start like this one.

            So far, he hadn’t been able to spy any ships, but the massive mix of different alien races at the market meant they were getting on and off this planet _somehow._ There had to be some kind of airstrip, or maybe even a whole airport.

            _But how legal is this market? Would there even be an airstrip near here?_

            How far away was Keith from actual civilization?

            _Just keep running._

            This place was mostly just a grassy meadow. The market had occupied what now seemed to be a small part of it. There had been no security, which struck Keith as odd and slightly alarming, because that meant whoever these people were, they were unafraid to deal in the lives of other people. It seemed to be an accepted thing here.

            _Think, Kogane. The Chancellor_ _’s daughter called this place an outpost._

            In Keith’s mind, if there was a whole planet called an “outpost,” it couldn’t have been very big, and it was probably isolated. If people were dealing in _slaves,_ essentially, then there was a questionable legality, which meant any official airstrips were either concealed, or fairly small in size. Then again, if this kind of trade was _legal_ _…_

            _This better not be fucking legal._

            Rumbling in the distance caught Keith’s attention. He halted, legs giving out beneath him at the sudden lack of movement. He needed to get up, but at the moment, he could not bring himself to. They ached. He’d been out for some indeterminate amount of time, had an injury, was possibly concussed, and needed proper rest. So he sat on the ground for several minutes, completely exposed, a stolen gun at his side, and listened to the rumbling draw closer.

            Something clicked in his brain, and he decided he was a moron.

            _You were brought to that market in a van. There should have been tire tracks._

            No matter, no matter. If there was another vehicle coming in this direction, then that meant there was probably an airstrip or civilization wherever it was coming _from._ Keith slowly got back on his feet and picked up the gun he’d set in the grass. He had a few options, as the vehicle came into view. The first was to try and hide—and by that, he meant press himself against the ground and hope no one saw him. The second one was to make another break for it and hope there wouldn’t be a pursuit. The third was to stand his ground and hijack the vehicle.

            When he realized there were probably more people in that vehicle, struggling like he was, his choice was clear.

            No team. No lion. No armor. No bayard.

            It didn’t make him any less of a Paladin of Voltron.

            He could fight. He had a weapon. And he had the proper motivation.

            Keith steadied himself, made sure his feet were properly planted. He surveyed the area around him again. No one was coming at him, except for the vehicle in front of him. He didn’t appear like there was anything in the air approaching, either. No ships. No Galra fighters. No surveillance drones. Just him. And the vehicle.

            Keith’s heart started pounding harder as the vehicle drew closer. There had been three people who’d tried to kidnap him, at _least._ If there were more in this van, and were slightly more skilled in a fight than the ones who’d taken him were…

            _What the fuck, Keith?_

            He was never this concerned about fights, and he especially shouldn’t have been _now,_ when it actually mattered.

            Keith reminded himself that these people were humanoid and couldn’t be _that_ much bigger than him. Right? The people who’d taken him certainly weren’t. That fight took no more than a minute to go down, and he’d come out of it without a scratch, and with a new weapon. Admittedly, it wasn’t the _best_ weapon, Keith was still more comfortable with a blade…

            _Guns are Lance_ _’s thing._

_But Lance isn_ _’t here right now._

_Stop it._

            By now, the vehicle wasn’t that far from him. The people driving it could probably see him, and that thought was confirmed a few seconds later when the vehicle began slowing. Keith squared his shoulders. He clutched his gun, pointing the muzzle at the ground, finger resting to the side of the trigger. Maybe he could avoid a confrontation. Maybe the sight of the gun would be enough to get these people to turn over the van.

            _They_ _’re probably armed._

            The vehicle finally stopped, a good thirty feet away from Keith. If he had any chance of hijacking this thing, he was going to have to make a break for it. For now, though, he held his ground, waiting with bated as the doors to the vehicle opened, and one, two— _two only, huh_ —figures stepped out. Both with guns. Both aimed at him.

            Keith forgot to check what kind of ammunition these guns had, and found out a moment later when the person exiting from the left of the vehicle opened fire.

            He ducked and rolled and came up to one knee and fired back at his attacker with what appeared to be bullets, or whatever this outpost’s equivalent of bullets were. He wasn’t aiming for a fatality, just to incapacitate, but then again, he didn’t have nearly as much experience with guns as he should have.

            _I need my sharpshooter._

            His shot, intended to strike his assailant in the leg, went too high, and struck them in the abdomen. They stumbled back, one arm flying to the fresh wound, while their second shot toward Keith went too low and struck the ground a few inches in front of him. He scrabbled back, and the second person from the vehicle took their chance and shot. Keith barely moved out of the way in time, the shot missing his thigh by less than an inch.

            _Get up get up get up get up._

            His mind flashed back to Eddul, flashed back to Lance on the ground, with gunfire erupting around him. Lance had lasted much longer against a whole forest firing at him, most of them unseen, than Keith was lasting with just two people, standing right in front of him, one of them now doubled over and vomiting. Keith grimaced at the sight and tore his gaze away, swallowing the bile that rose in the back of his own throat. He switched his gaze over to the second attacker, and he leveled the gun as best he could and fired three times, in rapid succession, before there was a click.

            _Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck—_

            Empty. Out of ammunition. Keith could fill in any number of adjectives and phrases for why his gun was now near-useless, but he still clutched the it anyway, staggered to his feet, and charged for the vehicle. The attacker on his right kept firing, and Keith kept moving, widening his path to go around the attacker he’d shot. The attacker on the right shouted a word Keith didn’t understand—probably some alien swearword—and momentarily aimed their gun at the ground, unwilling to shoot at their partner.

            It then clicked in their brain (did these people _have_ brains?) what Keith was trying to do, and the attacker bolted for the van. Keith grit his teeth and ran harder, as hard as he could push himself. He reached the van seconds before the attacker did and yanked himself inside through the passenger door, climbing over to the driver’s seat, just in time to deliver a kick to the chest of the attacker. The attacker fell, and Keith slammed the door shut.

            Admittedly, he didn’t quite know how this thing worked, but there were pedals at his feet and a stick at his right and some sort of steering mechanism in front of him, and it was good enough. He slammed a foot into what he hoped was the gas (or whatever the alien equivalent was, Keith was _not_ trying to waste time) and shoved the stick forward, and the vehicle took off.

            “Shit!” Keith swore, suddenly jerked back into his seat, head hitting the headrest.

            _If I have a concussion, this is only going to make it worse._

            Keith brushed that thought aside as he gripped the steering wheel and swung the van around, barreling back the way the van had come. He glanced at his attackers from the windshield. The one of them was now kneeling on the ground, clutching their stomach, hunched in on themselves, still vomiting, and Keith wondered which vital organ he’d accidentally struck.

            _Self-defense,_ Keith reminded himself.

            It could’ve been worse. He could’ve decided to run them over with a van, but swerved out of the way of them, and out of the way of the other attacker, who’d gotten back to their feet and now aimed their gun for the windshield. Keith grit his teeth and swerved harder, and seconds later, heard a shot ping off the side of the vehicle, inches away from the tinted side window.

            _Did they not see my jumpsuit?_ Keith thought bitterly. _Red shoulder pads? No other person in this whole_ fucking _universe has this uniform! I_ _’M A PALADIN OF VOLTRON, ASSHOLES._

            Then another thought: _I wonder if they_ _’re after that bounty. Or they’re with the people who brought me here._

            And then, one of the most important thoughts: _What_ _’s even in the back of the van?_

            He hadn’t heard any noise coming from the back, and assumed it was at least mildly soundproofed back there—after all, his kidnappers hadn’t stopped the truck when he’d been thrown off his knees and banged his head—but still…

            _Find an airstrip, check the back later._

            Keith just hoped that there weren’t people back there that he was accidentally neglecting.

            _You_ _’re just finding a way out of here. If there are people back there, you can help them afterward._

            Briefly, he wondered what Shiro would say to him if he could see him at this moment. Would he scold him for not taking the time to see if there were others suffering, or commend him for getting out of that situation as fast as he could?

            _FEEL. GUILTY. LATER._

            Another few shots rang out, the bullets striking the back of the van, but those shots were becoming less in number, the sound of gunfire fading, and after a few minutes, Keith could no longer hear it. He relaxed a bit, but that didn’t mean he was slowing down. He kept his eyes straight ahead. There was some kind of land formation coming into view—it looked like jagged rocks. Maybe a cliffside.

            A cliffside that trucks and vans were moving in and out of.

            Keith narrowed his eyes. This wasn’t just a cliffside, then. As Keith drew closer, he realized that this was a whole wall of rock, with a tunnel going straight through it. A road began out of nowhere and went straight through.

            _Or, this is a road that ends here to turn people around._

            Keith smirked. He had a way out of here.

* * *

            Lance’s sobs subsided after what had to be a good half an hour of straight crying. Blue and Red had both tried to comfort him at some point, from whatever hangars they were being held in. Red had even reassured Lance that Keith was still alive. She couldn’t communicate with him, the distance between them too great, but she could still feel him, if that made sense. She explained it in a stream of ideas that Lance could kind of put together in his messy state.

            Their connection was a tether drawn tight—Red felt it and knew it existed. If Keith had died, all of that tension would have been replaced with emptiness. The tether would have ceased to exist.

            After that, Lance had whispered quiet _thank yous_ to the Lions, and spent the next several hours staring up at the ceiling, refusing to sleep again. Once he grew bored of staring at the same charcoal gray metal, metal lined with softly glowing purple tubes and dimmed white light, he sat up and surveyed the room, something he hadn’t thought to do earlier, because he was too busy trying not to have a _freaking panic attack._

            He noted again the door on the wall directly opposite the bed, the door with no print pad to let anyone in or out of the room from this side. If Lotor came in, and let the door shut, Lance would’ve been trapped with him, and that had been the thought to make his chest seize up and heart start pounding and body start humming with anxious energy.

            There were two other doors in here, both on the wall at Lance’s right. The first was to the bathroom—well, _bath_ room. Galrans apparently had separate rooms for their showers and for their toilets. The door on the left led to the room for bathing. The door on the right was for actually relieving himself. At least, that was according to the explanation Lotor had tried to give him.

            Lance, obviously, had not been able to pay the clearest attention.

            He swung his legs over the side of the bed and got to his feet, padding along the floor in a pair of slippers left by the bedside.

            (Was it uncomfortable to be wearing Galran clothes left behind for him? Absolutely. Did he have much of a choice? Absolutely not. He was gonna take what he could get.)

            The doors to the bathing room and to the toilet room both seemed to have some kind of motion sensor or pressure plates in front of them, because they didn’t have print pads, yet still opened when Lance got close enough. He went into the bathing room first and turned in a slow circle, taking in what he could. There was a shower, which looked enough like a normal shower—showerhead, hopefully with water and not some weird chemical; a sink with a mirror above it; and a little shelf rack full of towels and different-sized, different-colored bottles, probably filled with soaps.

            Lance turned to look at the door, only to find that there seemed to be no locking mechanism.

            Anyone could walk in.

            He couldn’t use this room as a hiding spot. Not for very long.

            It was the same story in the toilet room, which was slightly smaller than the bathing room. There was a sink with a mirror, a toilet, and a smaller rack with fewer soaps and fewer towels, and a door with no locking mechanism.

            _Don_ _’t freak out don’t freak out don’t freak out._

            _Breathe, Lance._

            _BREATHE, LANCE._

            He couldn’t. He couldn’t he couldn’t he _couldn_ _’t_ , his chest was seizing and his heart wouldn’t stop pounding pounding pounding, trying to make a break from his ribcage. His stomach flipped and Lance bent over the sink, clutching the sides, leaning down until his head was almost touching the metal the sink was made from.

            _BreathebreathebreathebreatheDAMMIT—_

            His body felt hot while the back of his neck went cold, and when Lance lifted his head, to maybe look himself in the eyes in the mirror and ground himself, he found he couldn’t, he couldn’t see, something was _wrong with his eyes, why weren_ _’t they working?!_

            _Shootshootshoot—_

            Lance whirled around and collapsed to his knees in front of the toilet hardly a second before he began retching, the little contents of his stomach splashing into the bowl with whatever else his system was trying to expel.

            When he was done, when nothing else came up, Lance couldn’t get to his feet. He shook from head to toe, and had to resign himself to leaning against the wall, shutting his eyes and sucking in whatever air he could. At some point his arms must have gone numb—they tingled now, the pins-and-needles feeling that always reminded Lance of TV static.

            Lance opened his eyes and blinked a few times. Tears slid down his cheeks as he cleared his vision.

            _Dammit._

_Dammit dammit dammit._

            Lance pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.

            _Stop this. You_ _’re pathetic._

            Second time crying in a matter of hours.

            Worst panic attack he’d had in a while.

            Lance couldn’t remember the last time he’d had to drag himself out of a panic attack. His panic attacks started back at the Garrison, a few weeks in when he was threatened with losing his cargo pilot status, potentially being booted for good. He couldn’t go back home a failure. He couldn’t lose his friendship with Hunk. He wanted to go to _space,_ and he wasn’t going to lose that chance for being an utter _failure._

            Hunk had been there to pull him out of that one.

            Hunk was the first person who’d ever watched his confident facade break.

            Lance’s anxieties only got worse from then on. They eased up, a little bit, when his drive to get into space pushed him finally, _finally_ into fighter class. Until Iverson constantly reminded him that Keith’s expulsion was the only reason (so he said, anyway) that Lance made fighter class.

            His next panic attack—next _bad_ one—came in space. It was after he almost got blown up by that bomb, after he realized that he could die and never see his family again, realized that he could die, and the team would have been fine without him, right? They saved the castle without him, after all. _Would they tell his family that he was dead? Would they remember?_

            Coran had witnessed that one, and Coran swore up and down he’d never tell anyone.

            To Lance’s knowledge, Coran still kept that secret.

            He’d had a couple more, and usually, he’d gone to Hunk for those. After the botched mission (well, Shiro considered it a kind of victory, but the others…not so much) on Lotor’s ship, any time he’d be on the verge of panicking, someone was there for him. Usually Keith. Or Hunk. Sometimes even Pidge.

            He hadn’t been alone for one for a long time.

            All it did was remind him of his situation, and he felt his throat closing again.

            _“Breathe, my child.”_

            _Blue?_

_“Deep breaths, Lance.”_

            Lance nodded—not like Blue could see him.

            _“Just breathe.”_

            Right. Right. Breathing.

            _Four seconds in._

            One, two, three, four.

_Seven seconds hold._

            One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

_Eight seconds out._

            One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

            As Lance counted each second, he tapped his hand against his leg, to give his limbs something to do, to ground himself, to keep himself anchored in reality.

            _Four in. Seven hold. Eight out._

            _Four in. Seven hold. Eight out._

            _Four in._

_Seven hold._

_Eight out._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter summary for anyone who had to skip scenes for the trigger warnings mentioned in the first note.**  
>  -Keith makes his escape from the market grounds by running. He comes across a van and gets into a gunfight with the two people driving the van. He shoots one of them (probably fatally, by accident), and steals the van from the other one, who then shoots at the van. Keith then discovers a tunnel leading away from the market grounds, which leads him to believe the whole setup is illegal.  
> -Lance surveys his room and finds the bathing room and the toilet room. When he realizes that there are no locks on these doors, and realizes he has no place to hide, he goes into a panic attack.
> 
> Okay, so this was probably the last chapter until Saturday or Sunday. Probably. It's currently 10:27 AM, so I don't know how much writing I'm getting done during the rest of the day. I have to pack for my trip, and I leave tomorrow morning, and then I don't know how much free time I'll have to write chapter 5 while I'm away. I come back Saturday afternoon, so the next chapter...probably expect late Saturday night or sometime on Sunday. If it goes up earlier, consider it a miracle*.
> 
> *Maybe. I'm a persistent person and writing is basically breathing for me. I don't like to not be writing.
> 
> Okay, see you all when chapter 5 goes up!!


	5. The One in Which Team Voltron Gets a Lead and Keith is Having Issues (as Usual)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Voltron gets a lead on their missing members. Keith is bad at driving. Like, really bad. And not because of lack of skill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For an introvert, I really fuckin like the city. Also, I almost died at least twice, because the people here can't drive for shit. How's your day?
> 
> YEP, EARLY CHAPTER! I got this done sooner than I expected, and Keith is becoming increasingly more relatable. Sorry, my dude, but if I'm suffering, I'm taking you down with me.
> 
> ALSO, I POSTED THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE BEACH RESORT AU: [Drastic Measures, Final Straws, and Last Resorts](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11826810/chapters/26689749)
> 
> I actually hate the title but it's all I've got so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ (Also since I'm working on this fanfic, it takes precedent, so DMFSALR is gonna be slow to update. I only finished chapter one because being in a hotel gave me the needed atmosphere to get it done.)
> 
> Okie dokie here's chapter five!

Chapter 5

            When the castle’s sleep cycle ended, Allura called everyone back to the bridge. From the bags under her eyes, it was evident to everyone else that despite her being there to encourage Pidge to get sleep, she hadn’t, either. In her defense, she _would have,_ but a transmission from a nearby outpost under Tarvin’s jurisdiction had come in _just_ as she’d been preparing to head off to bed, and, well, she couldn’t just let it go. It had been Chancellor Verna, hours after the battle ended, hours after she’d promised Team Voltron that they’d pick up on alliance negotiations at a later time.

            The plan to bring most of the people from Tarvin Two into the castle had turned into getting everyone to an outpost the Galra would leave alone, under heavy military protection. An evacuation point set up for emergencies like this one. With everything going on, Allura hadn’t had much time to discuss the future of their alliance. So of course, when the transmission came through, Allura had to pick it up.

            In the transmission, Chancellor Verna had explained to her how the rest of the battle went down, after the Paladins were forced to retreat without Lance and Keith. From the outpost, word was sent out to Tarvin Four of what was happening, and the military had been deployed. Tarvin Three was in full-scale rebellion against the government, choosing to fight alongside the Galra. Tarvin One was under unshakable Galra occupation. And, minutes before the transmission, Verna had received word that Tarvin Two had fallen. The next target was the military base of Tarvin Four.

            But this transmission, Verna had said, was about more than that.

            A hostage on Tarvin Three had managed to get a video from the chancery in the embassy to the outpost.

            Allura watched it in stunned silence. And now, she was about to show it to everyone else.

            Shiro and Coran were the first ones on the bridge. Coran appeared to be the only person who’d _actually_ slept, because from the way Shiro carried himself, and the glazed look to his eyes, Allura knew he hadn’t slept last night. He’d probably spent the whole night worrying about the other Paladins, if Allura knew him.

            This video probably wouldn’t help him much.

            Hunk and Pidge walked in next. Well, Hunk walked. He carried Pidge piggy-back style. Her glasses were askew on her face, and from the looks of it, she was probably going to pass out any moment. Hunk himself was only slightly better off.

            Allura sighed.

            This was Team Voltron: a hot, exhausted, soon-to-be-emotional-again mess.

            Out of habit, Allura flicked her eyes back to the door, half-expecting Lance and Keith to come in last as they usually did, tangled up in each other, before she remembered. That was the whole _point_ of this meeting: confirm Lance’s location, and try and get a lead on Keith.

            Oh, and the alliance.

            That too.

            (They weren’t supposed to say it out loud, but all of them knew, the alliance was not the most important thing.)

            “I received a transmission last night from Chancellor Verna,” Allura announced to the quiet bridge. No ceremony. No hushed conversations being interrupted. Everyone lifted tired eyes to her, as attentive as they could be.

            “Tarvin Four is the last planet in the chain with autonomy. However, the diplomats from Tarvin Two are currently under military protection on an outpost. You all know this. Chancellor Verna is still open to negotiations for an alliance,” Allura went on.

            She hated how tired she sounded, how unenthused she seemed to be in the face of the fact that the Galra _hadn_ _’t_ managed to steal an alliance from them. But if anyone else was disconcerted by it, they didn’t say anything.

            “That’s good,” Hunk muttered, in what Allura supposed was an effort to try and lift the mood a little.

            Pidge mumbled something no one else could hear.

            Shiro just nodded with an _mmhmm_ , like he was still processing what Allura had said.

            Coran met Allura’s gaze and gave her a shrug. What more could they do, really?

            “That’s not all,” Allura said. “We received a video from Tarvin Three.”

            _That_ got everyone’s attention. Pidge’s head snapped up so fast that Allura was afraid she might have just given herself whiplash. She threw herself down from Hunk, her landing sloppy and sending her stumbling. Hunk reached out an arm to both draw her back and steady her.

            “Like, a new one?” Hunk asked.

            Allura nodded.

            “Yes. According to Chancellor Verna, many of the representatives of that planet allied themselves with the Galra. A few rebelled, and all were held hostage in the chancery. A small number who allied themselves with the Galra lied to them, and one of them managed to snag security feeds and send it to the outpost. It confirms what we know about Lance’s location, and gives us…a _small_ lead on Keith. I have to warn you, the video is…sensitive.”

            Allura pulled up her holoscreens and tapped away, and a few moments later, the video illuminated the bridge windows.

            “As you can see,” Allura said, over the shouting and chaos and shooting of the video, “the Galra soldiers guarding the representatives were so busy trying to disarm Lance and Keith, that the security feeds went unnoticed.”

            And then she fell silent, and let the rest of the video roll without any more commentary.

            Seeing the feed of Lance and Keith’s final fight wasn’t any less horrifying than it had been the first time around, between the two of them yelling for each other as Keith went down first, and then Lance went down just ticks later; between the soldiers dragging them forward to Lotor, whose smug look made Allura seethe; between Lance and Keith shouting in the other’s defense.

            Allura’s heart ached for them.

            _“Don’t hurt him!”_

            The security feed that was grabbed seemed to come from a camera near the front of the chancery. From this angle, everyone could clearly see the anguished expression on Lance’s face as he struggled futilely to get free of the soldiers holding him back.

            _“I’m the one you want! He doesn’t deserve this!”_

            _“Lance,_ don’t _._ _”_

            Somewhere on the bridge, someone sniffled and stifled a gasp, and Allura was glad her back was turned to the others. Not just so she wouldn’t have to see them, but so they wouldn’t have to see her, and the silent tears now rolling down her face.

            _“Knock him out. We can deal with him back at Central Command.”_

            _“No. No! Leave him—Lance!_ Don’t touch him! _”_

_“Keith—”_

            Allura grimaced as one of the soldiers standing behind Lance swung their gun against the side of Lance’s head. Lance cried out and went limp, a cut opening and blood trickling down where the gun had connected. Hunk gasped, audibly, and even Shiro could not stop himself from swearing under his breath.

            _“No!_ Let him go, _Lotor!_ _”_

            It was here that things took a turn Allura hadn’t expected. She’d been waiting for Lotor to take his sword and kill Keith here. After all, he’d made explicit threats against Keith on more than one occasion. But instead of killing him, he went off on some spiel, hinting at the steps he’d taken to get onto Tarvin Three without Tarvin Two’s knowledge, pointing out the abysmal living conditions on Tarvin Three.

            Allura couldn’t disagree with his assessment on that, at least.

            She hadn’t told Chancellor Verna that.

            _“—Of course, I_ did _need help on Tarvin_ One, _so I_ _’m imagining, as you and your lover came_ here _alone, that there are a couple other Paladins currently fighting for freedom over_ there _._ _”_

            Pidge made a noise in the back of her throat, some squeaking sort of thing, a noise that told Allura that Pidge was the one who’d been sniffling earlier.

            On the screen, Allura watched the realization dawn on Keith’s face, accompanied by worry, and—yes, that _was_ utter terror. A flash of it, no more and no less, but enough for Allura to glimpse. And then the look disappeared altogether, replaced by anger and surprise as Chancellor Verna’s daughter—Puzza, Allura came to find out, once she’d returned to talking to Chancellor Verna—entered the room.

            Allura listened to her speech about how broken Tarvin Three was, and while she couldn’t agree with her method of making money, she agreed, something needed to change.

            “Bovona System?” Hunk asked, but Shiro called for him to be quiet, narrowed eyes still locked on the screen.

            _“—Knock him out, as well. Chart a course for Central Command, we need to get away before the other Paladins come back…”_

            Lotor stepped into his crowd of soldiers, barking orders to get Lance off to his ship, while one of the soldiers behind Keith knocked him out much in the same fashion the others had knocked out Lance. Allura winced as Keith went down, and Puzza ordered the soldiers to take his armor and hand it over to the empire—they had no need for it. As soon as Keith was stripped down to his jumpsuit, his unconscious body was hauled away, and that was where the clip ended.

            Allura took a few deep breaths, squared her shoulders, and turned to face the others. Coran was absolutely white, unsure of what to say as his gaze continually switched between Allura and the other Paladins. Pidge’s eyes were red-rimmed, and she was still sniffling, but Allura recognized the rage in her expression. Hunk watched Pidge carefully, utterly heartbroken. And then there was Shiro, who looked just about ready to either commit murder or scream at the top of his lungs. Or both.

            “Chancellor Verna hasn’t been in contact with her daughter for more than ten of your Earth years,” Allura said. “She had no hand in what happened on Tarvin Three, despite the way it may look. I told her an alliance was still on the table, but something needs to be done about Tarvin Three. In due time, of course. Our most pressing issue now, of course…”

            How would the others react if she said _finding Lance and Keith_ instead of _stopping Lotor?_ They needed Voltron, clearly. Finding Lance and Keith would be the only way for them to _form_ Voltron.

            Thankfully, Allura didn’t need to voice it—it seemed to be understood among them.

            “So, the Bovona System,” Hunk said, voice wobbling just slightly. “Do we know where that is?”

            Allura shook her head. “Unfortunately, no. It’s not logged in our database at all, and Chancellor Verna was apparently not aware of Tarvin Three having connections to any outpost, let alone star system, except the one she and the other representatives are currently taking refuge on.”

            “What do you mean it’s not logged in the database?” Shiro asked, crossing his arms.

            He was fighting to keep his voice even, and Allura knew it.

            She grimaced and pulled up the universal star map.

            “As we’ve seen before, much of our data has had to be updated as we go from planet to planet. This database was created over ten thousand years ago. New planets form. Names change. And for all we know, _Bovona System_ could be a code name or an alias for another system entirely,” Allura said.

            “Do you think it could be a fold in space? Like the Blade of Marmora bases, or something like that?” Hunk asked.

            Allura shook her head. “I mean, it’s a possibility, but Tarvin Three seems the most technologically lacking of the Tarvin chain, and even then, the chain itself is nowhere near advanced as we or the Galra are…I seriously doubt it. We can’t rule it out, but I don’t think so.”

            Hunk frowned.

            “Okay,” Pidge said, “so then this is just like when we had to find Matt and Shiro. We at least have more leads this time. Lance is with Lotor. And Keith is somewhere called the Bovona System. They only had a day and a half head start, and our tech is better than theirs. What if we try and track them down?”

            “That would involve going back into Galra-occupied airspace, and they know we’re down two Lions and two Paladins,” Shiro pointed out, and sucked in a little breath. Narrowed his eyes. Raised them to the star map.

            “ _But_ …,” Pidge said hopefully, anger transforming into something like determination.

            “But,” Shiro repeated. “It’s our only chance of finding Keith. We have Lance’s location, and I don’t want to leave him behind, but Lotor won’t kill him. And Lotor hasn’t sent us a transmission yet, bragging about anything, so we have to assume he’s okay for now. Besides, last time we went to Central Command, we had everyone on board and…things still didn’t go well.”

            He shifted his gaze to Allura.

            “Is this all right with you?”

            “I was going to suggest the same thing,” Allura said. “We’ll need to be prepared for a fight, of course. But being there will hopefully allow us to lock onto signals leading us to Keith.”

            She glanced at Pidge and Hunk, who both nodded vigorously.

            “We find Keith, we rescue him, and then we head right to Central Command and rescue Lance. And if we can, we take out Lotor,” Shiro said. “The Galra power structure will collapse, and we’ll have to do damage control, but it’s our best shot.”

            “I suggest getting into contact with the rest of the Voltron Alliance and explaining everything to them,” Coran spoke up. “Perhaps then we could arrange for them to aid us in an infiltration of Central Command. And, of course, if any of them happen to stumble upon Keith, they could let us know.”

            “Excellent thinking, Coran,” Allura said.

            She looked between the others, rubbing the sleep from their eyes, exchanging determined looks and tentative smiles. This looked more like the Team Voltron Allura knew: a team that would never back down from a challenge, that banded together when the going got tough.

            Allura’s own smile widened.

            They would get Lance and Keith back. It was just a matter of time.

* * *

            Keith almost drove off a cliff. More than once.

            The road, he came to find out, after more than four straight hours of driving, led through winding mountains, up hills and down them, bending precariously around cliff faces. Some had sharper turns than others, and this wasn’t exactly like an Earth van, or his speeder—which he was used to driving off cliffs. He was also now convinced that there were no people on board. Of course, he was still going to check the van whenever he reached an airstrip or airport or hangar or _something,_ but he hadn’t heard screaming. Or bodies slamming against the walls of the van every time Keith made _too_ sharp of a turn.

            It was no wonder no one was coming to check on the market—it was on _top_ of a fucking mountain, and the way to it was basically a death sentence. That didn’t make Keith feel any better about his chances of finding a _nearby_ airstrip, seeing as there hadn’t been a single thing in the sky when he made his escape.

            _You don_ _’t know the planet’s culture. Maybe there are designated flying times or something._

            What would he do if he couldn’t find a way off of this planet in the next day or two?

            How many people knew who he was, and how many of them would sell him in a heartbeat?

            A shiver skittered down Keith’s spine. It’d been more than a day since everything had happened, and hours he’d been on the run, staring that fact in the face, and it still made him sick. He’d been sold off. People on this planet were being sold off. There were people all across this universe, probably millions or billions or trillions or even _more_ , being treated like property. Team Voltron could only free so many of them.

            And they could only do that once they reunited. Once they got Red and Blue back.

            Once they got Lance back.

            Part of Keith wanted to find a ship and gun it all the way to Central Command, so he could just take out Lotor himself and rescue Lance without being bogged down. He’d do _everything_ himself. He’d be responsible for his own actions and any injuries received. But he knew that it would be rash and ultimately do more harm than good. Even with the knowledge that Lotor’s officers hated him, he would still be walking into the heart of enemy territory. So much could go wrong, and he would have no backup. If Lance ended up hurt or recaptured…

            Keith yelped and jerked the steering wheel hard to the left, van careening around a tight corner.

            “I need to stop drifting off,” he muttered to himself, but he couldn’t really help it.

            Not where Lance was concerned.

            Sometimes he really hated it, the effect Lance had on him. Before he officially met and really got to know Lance, Keith would have no problem keeping a clear head in battle (or any other time, if he was being completely honest about how often Lance distracted him). Before, Shiro had been the only exception, but even then, Shiro had an authoritative air that made Keith keep his focus. Keith only ever got distracted by thoughts of Shiro if he thought Shiro was in danger.

            With Lance, distraction was constant.

            And that was why Keith realized too late that he was drifting off for a second time, the situation only dawning on him when the van left the road entirely and began freefalling.

            Keith might have been screaming. Most of it was incoherent, but there were small streams of words that slipped through the cracks of his babbling, like _oh fucking hell I did it again_ and _dammit Lance why did I have to fall in love with you of all people_ and _if I die_ and then _I can_ _’t fucking die, not today Satan, try and take me and your ass can say hello to my foot._

            _Fucking_ focus, _Kogane!_

            Now was absolutely the last time he should’ve been losing his cool. Now was the time to be making a plan— _quickly._ At this velocity, and at this angle (an angle rapidly making its way to ninety degrees), there was a significant chance this van would be crushed. And seeing as it was going down front-first, the windshield would be first to go.

            Keith would die.

            If he stayed, and he didn’t die, then he would take on some massive injuries he didn’t have the time for. He was still unsure of whether or not he had a concussion, but seeing as he didn’t have a splitting headache, and wasn’t nauseous for reasons other than the fact that he was about to make a wild decision, and was still conscious, he could probably safely conclude he _didn_ _’t_ have one.

            Which made his next decision easier.

            The ground was quickly rushing up to meet him and the van. Keith had no seatbelt to undo, seeing as he’d thrown safety out the window in the name of making a quick getaway. He threw open his door, sucked in a breath, shot a quick _don_ _’t kill me please I have a boy I need to see one more time_ to whatever higher powers had had his back thus far, and then jumped out of the van.

            _Tuck and roll tuck and roll tuck and roll tuck and roll—_

            Hitting the ground knocked the wind out of Keith, but he at least timed his jump just right. He rolled until he ended up sprawled on his back, stretching his arms out to his sides and panting.

            He did it.

            He was alive.

            He glanced over, at the van sitting…eh, fifty yards away was a safe estimate. Smoke curled into the air from the front end of the vehicle. Sure enough, the impact had crushed it like a soda can. Glass and metal littered the ground around the van’s remains—the back section, though part of it had also been dealt a blow.

            … _Oh, fucking hell._

            _The back._

            Keith still didn’t know if there had been people in the back. He shot to his feet, ignoring the aching of his limbs and ribs, and dashed for the van. The doors to the back jutted into the air, and Keith used the bumper to pull himself onto one door. He braced himself, and slowly pried open the other door.

            For a heartbeat, Keith crouched before the opening, refusing to look inside.

            _What if there were people here? What if I killed them?_

            _You have to look._

            Keith peered inside of the van, heart climbing into his throat as his eyes adjusted. He expected bodies. He expected blood. He expected twisted forms and lifeless eyes. Instead, he was greeted with a bunch of crates and supplies. None of them were big enough to hold a body, as far as he was concerned. If the labels told the truth, these were chemicals (they _were_ chemicals, right?) to be sold off to the scientists at the market. Seeing as two people were willing to kill Keith to protect them (unless they were shooting to disarm and kidnap him, too), these were valuable.

            Keith shut his eyes.

            He would so have loved to take them and figure out how to use them to his own advantage, but he still didn’t have a way off of this planet. He still didn’t even know _where_ to find a way off of this planet, especially not after falling off of a road into…what was this, a gorge? The base of a mountain? He couldn’t tell. All he knew was he couldn’t make multiple trips out of here, lugging along crates with contents that he didn’t quite know how to use.

            Keith rose shakily to his feet, hoping that being on top of this door would give him a better view of this place than he’d had when crouching.

            It did not. There were trees here, obscuring his view of half the place, and everything else was rock, as high as he could see. Keith narrowed his eyes, trying to spy the twisting road he’d been driving on. At this angle, it was difficult—the rock blended together into one continuous block of gray-brown.

            _There_ _’s gotta be another tunnel around here somewhere, if this road just keeps winding around. It wouldn’t lead to nowhere, right? The trucks and vans have to be coming from somewhere._

            So Keith waited.

            And waited.

            And waited.

            And then his ears picked up on the rumbling sound of another vehicle. He whipped his head around, spying a large truck making its way down the road. Keith moved toward that section of rock, always keeping his eye on the truck, until it disappeared from view. Keith’s heart plummeted.

            There were more tunnels.

            He needed to climb.

            “Patience yields focus,” Keith whispered, shoving down his growing irritation. He was alive, if nothing else.

            He latched onto that thought as he began surveying the rock to find a suitable place to start climbing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The real question now is...which fanfic updates first?  
> This one? Or [this one](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11826810/chapters/26689749)?
> 
> (Also I still haven't finished my AP summer work ripperoni)
> 
> See ya whenever chapter 6 goes up!!


	6. The One in Which Lance Assumes His Role and Keith is Still Having Issues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance assumes his role as Jeremy Ortega for the first time in full consciousness, and Keith is still having issues. Like, a lot of issues. Please stop pointing guns at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got ~questions~ to pose at the end and also some shameless self-promotion, so I'll let you read the chapter first. It's a long one.

Chapter 6

            Lance stayed on the floor of the bathroom for a solid twenty minutes, at least, until he finally gathered himself into something that kind of resembled a stable human being. He sent Blue away with the reassurance that he was fine for now, he’d reach out if he started to fall apart again (if he’d be coherent enough to _remember_ to reach out). That didn’t exactly satisfy Blue, but it did enough to get her to leave him alone; he could pinpoint the exact moment her presence in his mind vanished, and he was left connected to her only by the tether that linked their quintessence.

            Lance stood on weak legs and approached the mirror, gripping the sides of the sink in front of it for balance as he took in his appearance—red-rimmed eyes, with purple smudges underneath them; mussed hair, sticking up in odd directions from when he’d gotten out of bed, slightly curling from the now-drying sweat brought on by his panic attack; and pallid, clammy skin. He brought one hand up and ran it through his hair, frowning. It was also _greasy,_ which, considering he’d come off of a battle before coming here, with no time to refresh himself, was understandable.

            Still, it was disgusting, and Lance decided that he needed a shower.

            He left the bathroom with the toilet and entered the one with the shower, not-so-carefully taking off the silk pajamas left for him to wear. Looking closer at them now, now that they were inside-out thanks to his methods of taking off his shirts, Lance noticed spots of dried blood on them, and then looked at himself again. Touched the side of his head, where he’d taken the blow that knocked him out. Ran fingers over his leg, where he’d been slashed.

            The Galra hadn’t exactly done a good job of cleaning him up. Once again, it appeared they’d done the bare minimum to keep him alive while he’d been knocked out and viewed as an enemy. Once he fooled Lotor into thinking he remembered nothing, neither Lotor nor anyone else thought to clean him up a little bit further and show him the affection they claimed to have for him.

            _How many of them know? How many of them can tell I_ _’m a liar?_

_And how many of them would be willing to tell Lotor?_

            Lance pondered this the whole time he showered, hesitantly using the soaps left out on the racks. The labels were all in Galran, and Lance should not have trusted _any_ of this. For all he knew, these could have been chemicals that would burn him or kill him the moment they touched his skin. He tested the first one he selected, with a few drops on his palm. When he had no adverse reaction, he decided these soaps were safe enough, and finished off his shower as quickly as he could.

            Just before he turned the water off, he had an idea. He stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist, opened the door, and peered out into his room. He listened for noises coming from the hallway, and upon hearing none, dashed to his bed, careful not to slip on his wet feet. He reached underneath, fingers locking around his Paladin suit. He’d shoved it under here when he changed, unwilling to let Lotor find it and take it and possibly destroy it.

            Lance dashed back to the shower with the suit and began to wash it by hand, scrubbing every inch of it to rid it of his sweat and blood from earlier. Once he was done washing it, he brushed the shower curtain aside and hung the suit over the rod the curtain was suspended on. He would let it dry, and once it was dry, he would put it on, and wear the clothes from the Galra over it. He would just need to find clothes that would keep it out of sight.

            That might have been difficult.

            Lance left the bathroom once again, and shut the door this time, keeping the jumpsuit out of sight. He went to the dresser, against the wall opposite from the bathrooms. When he’d gotten changed earlier, he’d found nothing in here but formalwear and casualwear made of silks, completely impractical for protecting himself. Then again, he’d only rummaged through two drawers before he settled, exhaustion threatening to overwhelm him. This time, he sifted through the five drawers of the dresser carefully.

            He needed something more substantial. He needed armor.

            He found nothing of the sort in any of the five drawers.

            Lance understood the gist of things fairly quickly: he was meant to look good, both to please Lotor and be shown off to the other Galra. No armor of his own, as well as no weapon, meant he’d need to be dependent on either his own quick reaction times, or, in a real emergency, someone who had armor and a weapon. Lotor himself.

            Lance seriously doubted, as much as Lotor might have believed that Lance was once again Jeremy Ortega, that he’d be given a weapon this time. Not after his “betrayal.” Lotor was taking no chances. It would explain why his door locked from the outside. Why his bathrooms had no locks. If Lance had to guess, Lotor would tell him these measures would be for his safety.

            _Safety my butt,_ Lance thought to himself, glaring down at the clothes in front of him.

            He selected the first pair of black pants he could find and discovered that they were more like leggings than he’d anticipated, but he didn’t feel like trying to find something looser. He made a second discovery when it came time to pull the ends of his pants over his feet: the ends hooked around his feet, like stirrup pants. Lance frowned down at them, but still, he refused to go looking for something else. He was on a Galra ship wearing Galra clothes, so did it really matter which ones he was wearing, as long as he was covered?

            Besides, it wasn’t like the Paladins didn’t wear jumpsuits that _completely_ covered their feet 24/7.

            Lance resumed his digging around in the drawers and pulled out a shirt that wasn’t quite blue, but it was the closest thing he could find, a sort of indigo color that only reminded him that he was stuck in the Galra Empire until he could find a way out or get rescued.

            Lance shrugged on the shirt, and immediately took it back off.

            The neckline was a deep V that plunged down, much further than Lance would’ve liked. He crumpled the shirt and shoved it back among the other shirts (all of which were meticulously folded, until Lance resumed rummaging through them). Eventually he found a shirt—a dark purple, which, _fuck the color purple_ —that had a decent neckline. This one was the complete opposite of the indigo shirt, the collar crawling up his neck, ending in a point partially hidden from view by his chin. The fabric up here was a little stiffer, and dug into his neck every time he nodded his head, but it was better than everything else.

            This shirt was skin-tight, just as the pants were. Lance sighed, irritably, and resumed looking through his drawers until he produced something that looked kind of like a jacket. At the very least, it was something to cover up with. He shrugged it on and found it was a robe, silk and partially see-through and made of faintly-glittering black fabric. The long sleeves ran over his hands, and fell down whenever he lifted his arms. The bottom of the robe brushed the floor around his feet, but it was nothing he would trip in. Hopefully. And, finally, around the back, Lance felt a hood he could throw on over his head whenever he wished.

            With the fabric being sheer, it wouldn’t do very much, but it was still _something._

“Now shoes,” Lance muttered to himself. His eyes landed on a single pair of boots next to the dresser. They almost looked like combat boots, and sort of clashed with the rest of his outfit, but Lance didn’t really care; he was too busy being grateful that the shoes were _practical,_ and not something ridiculous like another pair of slippers.

            Lance reached down to tug one on when he remembered that he needed socks. Tearing apart the drawers hadn’t turned up socks—it’d only turned up the necessary undergarments. Still, Lance searched again, and found that he’d just missed the socks the first time. They weren’t much, and were made of silk like everything else (Lance was going to get sick of silk by the time he was done here). They came up to about mid-calf, and when Lance pulled on the boots, the socks just barely disappeared underneath them.

            Good enough.

            Lance looked down at himself. This outfit wouldn’t keep him safe from an assassin. Being skintight, he only had his boots and maybe his robe to conceal any weapon he could get his hands on. The weapon would have to be a small one, and probably a thin one, which really left him with a blade as his only option.

            Lance was not the team swordsman.

            His chest tightened as he recalled his last peaceful moments with Keith. They’d been on the bridge, moments away from getting to their lions and heading down to Tarvin Three.

            Lance pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.

            He told Keith they’d be _safe._ It was nothing more than a mission to check out Tarvin Three, running on the belief that the people there would be receptive to them, that it _wasn_ _’t_ filled with Galra waiting to ambush them. They were supposed to come back, and they were supposed to regroup with the others…

            _“Be safe.”_

_“I’ll be with you. I’ll be fine.”_

            Was Keith beating himself up for this? Did he know it wasn’t his fault? That Lance wasn’t blaming him? He knew, didn’t he?

            Lance froze, train of thought ramming to a stop as he heard footsteps in the hallway. He didn’t know how often his door was guarded, but what he did know was that this hallway was usually silent. In his mind, that meant one thing: Lotor was coming. He needed to slip into his Jeremy persona, and fast.

            Lance wondered how much change he could get away with. He was faking amnesia, and Lotor was feeding him obvious lies. He could probably be a little more nervous than usual, if anything.

            Constant questioning? Constant uncertainty on where things stood? On his next moves? Lance could do all of that, no problem. Pretending to be in love with Lotor?

            The thought was nauseating, but he didn’t have much of a choice.

            Lance moved toward his bed and sat down, easing his way onto the mattress to avoid making too much noise, when knocks sounded at the door.

            “Jeremy!”

            _Ah, quiznak. I was right._

            Lance fixed a forlorn stare at the empty wall in front of him and called, “Come in.”

            The door opened, and Lotor strolled inside. Lance noted that Lotor didn’t shut the door—he had no way out, if he were to shut it. Not unless he contacted another officer with Galran blood, through the communicator he was probably wearing.

            The thought made Lance wish for his own communicator. It had been easier to pretend before, when his friends were just a shout away, when Keith was here with him. Then, Lance had known he wasn’t alone—the team had his back, no matter what. Now, they probably had a vague idea of where to find him, but not his exact location. Not the current circumstances. Not his current state of mind: one part playing jump-rope with the line between absolute, panic-driven chaos and utter, apathetic shutdown; the other focusing on keeping the meltdown at bay and and helping Lance to put on the performance of his life.

            Lance decided to pay attention to the latter part of his mind.

            _You can do this._

_You_ _’ve done it before. Just do it again._

            “Something wrong, Jeremy?” Lotor asked, closing the distance between the door and the bed. He sat down, settling on the mattress right next to Lance, close enough for shoulders to brush and knees to knock.

            Despite the revulsion racing through his system, Lance leaned into him; it was what he would’ve done if it were Keith. Lance hated that thought—the thought that if he wanted to make this as believable as possible, he would have to pretend that… _I don_ _’t even wanna think it. They’re nothing alike._ Keith radiated warmth and safety. Keith was gentle with Lance and respectful of his boundaries and was there when Lance needed someone to talk to. Meanwhile, everything about Lotor screamed to run and not look back.

            “Not _really,_ ” Lance said. “Just trying to remember some stuff. It’s hard…nothing’s coming back. It’s all one big fog in my mind. I can’t even remember what happened that…well, you know, caused the amnesia.”

            Lance glanced to the side; Lotor was staring intently at him. Lance met his gaze and held it, held it, _can you please look away before I do, because if I do then something won_ _’t feel right, oh my—quiznaking look away already!_

            “Can you help me?” Lance asked, making his voice small. Meek.

            It wasn’t hard.

            “Haven’t I already?” Lotor asked, and Lance recalled the moment when he was in chains, when he saw Lotor for the first time since being knocked out on Tarvin Three, the first time he’d been alone with Lotor since his infiltration of the ship—had it been just over a week ago?—and he thought to himself, _I hope I_ _’m not making a bad decision_ when he opened his mouth and asked, as terrified-sounding as possible, _who are you?_

            “You did,” Lance said, voice still small, measured, “but…I need _more._ How did I lose my memory? Who caused it? What was happening in the first place? W-Was it a battle?”

            He stared insistently, eyes boring into Lotor’s, hoping that maybe he’d feel at least an _ounce_ of shame or pity or _something_ and look away.

            He finally did after a heartbeat of staring at Lance, turning away so Lance could hardly see his face.

            _So I can hardly see him thinking about what to say._

Memory recall shouldn’t have been a problem for something so recent and so apparently _important_ to Lotor. Lance wanted to laugh, wanted to at least crack a smile, but had to settle for the rush of satisfaction that flooded through him—Lotor wasn’t a master-class liar after all. There _were_ chinks in the armor he wore, ones Lance himself had learned early on how to hide, how to deal with.

            “Yes,” Lotor said, after another minute or two of silence, returning his gaze to Lance. “There was a battle. The Voltron Paladins were making an attempt to steal vital information from us, and they discovered your position among their ranks. The Red Paladin took it upon himself to take you out. He knocked you unconscious and was going to kill you—dishonorably so, I must add. I came in and rescued you and brought you back here. Away from them. They won’t be able to hurt you anymore.”

            Lance went silent. He dropped his gaze to the floor this time, pretending to process all of this.

            _Well. Makes sense he_ _’d blame Keith. He wants me to hate him._

            “What happened to them?” Lance asked, without raising his head. “How did the battle end?”

            From the corner of his eye, Lance watched Lotor. This time, his armor didn’t crack, his face did not slip underneath from the wistful mask he’d put on. He smiled, like it pained him, but it made it no less wicked. The fangs in the corners of his mouth weren’t really helping, either.

            “You were alone with the Red One. The others were too far away for me to catch, and they got away. But the Red One stayed. He refused to back down from a fight, so I fought him. And I killed him,” Lotor said.

            Lance did not turn to face him.

            Lance continued to stare at the ground.

            _Breathe breathe breathe breathe breathe he_ _’s lying breathe breathe breathe Red Blue one of you—_

            “He can’t hurt you anymore, my love,” Lotor said, finally turning to face Lance again.

            _“Keith is alive. Worry not, Lance,”_ Red purred.

            _Okay he_ _’s alive he’s okay now focus fucking focus if you cry it’ll be normal just FOCUS LANCE._

            While Lance dragged his eyes back to Lotor, Blue sent waves of calm down the bond between them, hoping to bring Lance back to the task at hand. Lance steadied himself— _thank you guys thank you so much_ —and gave Lotor a pained smile of his own. There were tears gathering in his eyes, and they affected Lotor in exactly the way Lance needed them to.

            “Jeremy?” Lotor whispered. “Why are you crying?”

            _Because I hate you and I hate this situation and I miss Keith and you made me think he was dead and I already get nightmares from my first time being here you_ _’re ruining my life and God I miss the castle—_

            “You saved me,” Lance breathed.

            Lance had seen a lot of movies. Too many, in most people’s opinions, if they were to hear the exact number. A good portion of them (read: obscenely large and probably unhealthy portion) had been romance movies, or action movies with a heavy romantic subplot, and in those movies, this would have been a moment where the love interests kissed.

            In this trainwreck, that meant Lance and Lotor.

            _I_ _’m so sorry, Keith. I hope you can forgive me for this._

            Lance leaned in, and Lotor leaned in, and when their lips were inches from touching, Lotor froze.

            His face changed completely, eyes going distant. Lance strained his ears—very faintly, he could hear another voice. Someone shouting in his comms. Lance couldn’t make out individual words, but whoever was shouting seemed alarmed.

            Lotor refocused on Lance.

            “I’m coming right now,” Lotor said. “Tell those scumrags to be patient.”

            _“But no more on that ungrateful…what’s the word that people on Earth use? Scumrag?”_

            The team. It had to be. They must’ve set up a transmission. Lance fought to keep his expression as confused and meek as possible, lest he give away that he knew exactly what was going on. Still, the hope swelled in his chest. They knew where he was. They would come and rescue him.

            He’d get to see—

            No.

            He wouldn’t.

            _“Blue says she can feel Allura, much more than I can feel Keith,”_ Red whispered to him. _“He is not with them. He is still out there somewhere. Alive, but not with the other Paladins.”_

            Okay. Okay. Okay. It was fine. Absolutely fine. The other Paladins were okay. They knew where Lance was. They just needed Keith, but he was alive. Keith had been on his own plenty of times before. He’d be fine, right? They’d find him in one piece, right?

            _Not the time._

_This is not the time._

            _You can_ _’t slip up._

_Your life depends on it._

_Breathe._

            Lance pulled himself back into reality. Lotor was studying him, unsure of what to do now that he’d killed the mood. Finally, Lotor pecked his lips, in and out before Lance could do anything.

            “I must go,” Lotor said. “ _You_ are to stay here. Don’t worry—it’s nothing serious, my love. Just something I have to take care of.”

            _No. Don_ _’t leave me here. Take me with you. I need to see the team. I need to tell them I’m okay, I need to see their faces, don’t lock me in here again._

            None of Lance’s thoughts made it past his mouth.

            “Okay,” Lance whispered.

            He brought his fingers to his lips and pretended to be dazed, while Lotor breezed out of the room, shutting the door behind him. His footsteps echoed in the hall outside until they faded away. Lance waited another minute before rising to unsteady feet and heading straight for the bathroom with the toilet.

            That had been _way_ too close. The transmission from the team—assuming that Lance’s hunch was correct—was nothing short of a _miracle._ He wondered if the link between all of them had subconsciously influenced them, or if he’d really gotten lucky. Whichever it was, Lance could not have been more grateful.

            Lance entered the bathroom and turned on the water in the sink, washing his hands, scrubbing at his mouth.

            At some point he let the water run while he stared once more at his reflection. The interaction between him and Lotor had lasted ten minutes at max, and Lance had almost lost his cool.

            “You,” he said, pointing at his reflection, “need to get it together.”

            He gaze became intense as his eyes narrowed.

            “Lance McClain,” he hissed, “you are the same kid who skipped school for two straight weeks because he was pretending to be sick. You convinced a teacher you aced a paper you never wrote. You have fooled _countless_ people into thinking you were okay when you wanted to break down. You are _absolutely not_ breaking that streak now, do you hear me? Mama McClain did _not raise a quitter._ You fought tooth and nail to make it to fighter class. You spent months putting up with Iverson’s bullshit. You’ve been resisting the Galra for _almost a year._ You. Will not. Give up. Now.”

            A long time ago, a cargo pilot stood in a tiny Garrison bathroom and chanted _fake it till you make it_ to himself for half an hour straight before swaggering out and acting like hot shit, while his emotions simmered under a tightly-sealed lid.

            Now, the Blue Paladin of Voltron swaggered out of a Galra bathroom in his prison cell of a bedroom muttering _you will not give up now,_ locking away his emotions in the darkest corner of his mind, and made it to his bed before collapsing onto his pillows and trying for more sleep.

* * *

            “Fucking piece of shit rock little bitch ass motherfucker can kiss my sweet ass, fuck you.”

            Keith only fell twice as he scaled the cliffside, collapsing onto his stomach as he pulled himself up to his final destination. He’d been higher up on the first fall than on the second, and was fairly certain he had a bruised tailbone—it _had_ to be just a bruise, because a break would’ve been more painful, right? He could still sit. He could still walk. It just…hurt. A lot.

            “Get up,” Keith told himself, after two minutes of lying on the ground.

            He didn’t move.

            “Get _up,_ ” Keith repeated.

            His legs twitched.

            “You’re gonna get hit by a truck, you idiot, now get _up._ ”

            _Would that be so bad?_

_YES, NOW GET UP._

            Keith groaned as he got to his feet. He swayed for a moment, wondering how he hadn’t collapsed yet, and then got moving. The tunnel was maybe a football field’s distance away from him, empty road stretching out before him. There was nothing here to hide behind if a truck were to see him. To one side, there was the cliff he just scaled and didn’t feel like falling back down. To the other side, there was a solid wall of rock. If he scaled it, he would reach another segment of road just like this one.

            While Keith walked toward the tunnel, he began going over his plans in his head. The first plan, the one he would have liked to run with, involved finding an airbase or _something_ and stealing a ship. Cargo ship, Galra ship, didn’t really matter, as long as it had enough fuel to get him out of here and a good distance away from this outpost. Low fuel? He could figure out how to make it last. He just needed to find someplace where people weren’t looking to capture him or kill him.

            _Easier said than done._

            His second plan, the one looking more and more likely, was to find some place to camp out. The sky was darkening, which meant night was coming. Keith would need to find or make some sort of shelter to hole up in, assess his injuries, treat whatever he could, and rest. When he woke up, whether it be several hours later, still in the dark, or during the morning hours, he needed to find sustenance. He hadn’t eaten in a while, and hadn’t had water. Food, he could go longer without. Water, not so much. Living alone in a desert had shown him exactly what could happen if a person didn’t get enough water.

            Headlights from the tunnel caught Keith’s attention.

            _Please keep driving._

_Go away._

_Leave me alone._

            _I refuse to throw myself down this cliff to avoid you._

            Suddenly, light illuminated the area in front of Keith, and the rumble of a second engine drifted into his ears.

            _Oh, what the fuck._

_COME ON._

            Both trucks slowed down as they neared each other, neared Keith. He stood on the roadside. He maybe should’ve made a break for the side of the road with the rock wall, instead of the side with nothing but open air.

            _You_ _’re gonna have to run._

            Still, Keith stood rooted to the spot as both trucks came to a stop, engines cutting out at nearly the same time, headlights still on, so they could see what was going on.

            _It_ _’s not even that dark._

            One of the doors opened, on the truck going _up_ the mountain, away from the tunnel. Keith tensed and watched a single driver step out, slamming the door shut behind her. She had a gun, just like everyone else Keith had seen so far, and as usual, it was trained on him. Then, the second driver opened their door, and hopped out, gun aimed not at Keith, but at the woman.

            “Step aside,” this driver said gruffly. “He’s mine. I saw him first.”

            _You_ _’ve gotta be kidding me._

            The woman flicked her gaze between Keith and the approaching man, scowling before swinging her gun around.

            “Nah,” the woman said. “I’ve got dibs, Stets. Step off.”

            _Oh, okay, so they know each other. Even better._

Throwing himself back down the cliff was looking more and more like a viable option.

            “Not likely,” the guy—Stets, apparently—said. “Do you know how much the Empire’s put out for his head?”

            _Well, fuck._

            The woman cut a glance at Keith, and then back at Stets, eyebrows raised. “The Empire threw his ass into this hellhole. I’m returning him to where he belongs.”

            It was Keith’s turn to raise his eyebrows.

            _Who are you and what do you know?_

            “Really now?” Stets asked, cocking his head. “The Emperor’s gone down into the Savna over the Paladins. I doubt he’d willingly leave one here.”

            Keith guessed _down into the Savna_ was some kind of slang from around here, but he didn’t intend on sticking around long enough to find out. He inched toward the tunnel, hoping that these two would be too focused on pointing guns at each other to pay attention to him, but then Stets turned his gun toward Keith.

            “Stop right there.”

            _Fuck._

            “Gun down, Stets,” the woman snapped.

            Keith heard a clicking sound.

            Her gun hadn’t even been cocked until now.

            “Or what, Luce? You’ll shoot—”

            Stets never got the chance to finish his sentence.

            Keith found it very difficult to breathe, but then something in his mind snapped into place, and he was off running. Behind him, he heard the woman—Luce—begin to chase after him.

            _I am not going to die here I cannot die here I am not_ —

            Keith tripped.

            He fucking tripped.

            His feet tangled themselves over each other and he went down, jaw smacking into the ground, teeth clacking. He braced himself to get shot—probably not fatally, but somewhere that would incapacitate him.

            He did not expect Luce to kneel down next to him.

            He did not expect her to start helping him to his feet, peppering him with questions and statements like _are you okay_ and _I_ _’m sorry I pointed that gun at you_ and _can you even stand up_ and _how long has it been since you treated your injuries?_

            Keith wrenched away from her as soon as the ground was solidly beneath him.

            “Who the _hell are you?_ ” Keith demanded.

            Luce raised her hands defensively.

            “My apologies. I understand the past couple of quintants have been rough for you. I’m Luce. I’m an operative for the Bovona Obscurities.”

            “The _what?_ ” Keith asked.

            “You don’t know much about these parts, do you?” Luce asked.

            Keith shook his head and took a step back, preparing himself to run again, just like the back of his mind was screaming for him to do right now. He’d been betrayed plenty of times before. In those instances, he’d been armed and protected by his armor and surrounded by his teammates. Not this time. He was exposed and in a dirty jumpsuit and weaponless except for his fists, but even those were starting to ache, and he didn’t know how long he would be able to hold up in a fight.

            “Freedom fighters, essentially,” Luce explained, noting the look on Keith’s face. “Tarvin’s a corrupt planetary chain, no matter which planet you visit. Tarvin Three managed to find this small star system and take it over with stolen military weaponry. That was over two hundred decaphoebs ago. Now the Bovona System is all trade under Tarvin Three’s direction, none of it exactly legal. The Galra Empire’s been looking the other way for a long time, because they’ve been buying off of this outpost for a while. You following?”

            It was a lot to take in.

            Keith broke it down into simpler terms.

            Tarvin: corrupt.

            Tarvin Three: broke and desperate.

            Bovona System: illegal trade.

            Galra Empire: complicit.

            “Is this where they’ve been getting some of their arena fodder? Prisoners from here?” Keith asked.

            Luce nodded. “’Fraid so. Anyone not being taken away by a prisoner gets sold off to a bunch of scientists. They get taken away to another part of the system. The Galra get all the reports from their labs, especially if there are notable breakthroughs. When word reached the system that Chancellor Verna’s daughter was bringing a Paladin with Galra blood here…well, it spread fast. And reached the Obscurities. Most members of the Obscurities were born and raised in this system, which is off the grid for most places. You do what you can to survive. Most of the time, it’s participating in the trade system. So, the Obscurities have been working to rescue people where we can.”

            Not arena fodder: lab rats.

            Lab reports: right to the Galra.

            Word: spreads fast.

            Obscurities: freedom fighters.

            “You’re like the Blade of Marmora then,” Keith said.

            Luce scrunched her nose. “I suppose. We don’t associate much with them. We had a falling out, maybe sixty decaphoebs ago? We made a deal not to interfere with each other. We realized our mistake soon enough, but they haven’t come back since. We’ve been doing what we can to fight for the same causes. Like helping out stranded Paladins. I take it you need a ship.”

            Keith didn’t want to trust her.

            He really didn’t.

            But her backstory was too detailed to just brush aside, and she hadn’t shot him _yet_ …

            “You’ll help me get out of here?” he asked. “You won’t kill me or sell me off?”

            Luce snorted. “Please. I can’t stand the Empire. They caused this. Tarvin had to restructure its whole system to deal with them, and Tarvin Two ended up with all the power. Tarvin Three was left rotting, which drove them here, and now everyone’s fighting everyone. If Voltron can wipe them out, then why would I stand in their way? Now, come on. You need to eat, and then we’ll get you off this planet.”

            She led Keith back to her truck, to the empty passenger seat.

            Keith climbed inside and buckled up, eying Luce warily the whole time, even as she turned the truck around and began driving the way Keith had been going. After ten or so minutes of Keith staring, with one hand on the door in case he needed to make a break, Luce sighed in exasperation and tossed her gun into his lap.

            “Here. If it’ll make you feel better.”

            It did.

            It did make Keith feel better having a weapon, because he wasn’t going to believe his luck right now. This was the second time he’d looked utter doom in the eye, only to have an unexpected ally save his ass. First it had been Rivvin (Keith’s gut twisted a little, because he could still see the exact moment Rivvin died), and now it was Luce. Two secret freedom fighters.

            Keith toyed with the gun, testing its fit in his hand, resting his finger against the trigger.

            He didn’t trust this woman.

            Not a bit.

            The first chance he had, he was getting away from her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I'll get the shameless self-promotion out of the way first:  
> -Reminder that I posted the first chapter of the slow-to-update beach resort au: [Drastic Measures, Final Straws, and Last Resorts](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11826810/chapters/26689749)  
> -I've made a chatfic companion to the beach resort au. It's not necessary reading but there might be inside jokes thrown into the main story that are related to it. I'm gonna try and write a corresponding chatfic chapter to each main chapter but we'll see: [VOLTRON SQUAD](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11876091/chapters/26816874)
> 
> Okay question time!!  
> So how would you guys feel if I said this fic is gonna be like...a lot longer than the other ones. Like, almost definitely more than 20 chapters. Probably.   
> Also, I'm gonna make these chapters a lot longer, to maybe try and keep it around 20-30 chapters. I wanna flesh things out. I don't wanna just be like "oh whoop look at that everything is resolved by chapter 10 by a series of miracles yaaaay". I want time for everything to happen. Like I said, there'll be timeskips soon. SOON. I PROMISE. 
> 
> Okay I'm gonna go do some more summer work. School starts in 9 days. Send help. I have to read two books in nine days and one is by some really pretentious-sounding guy and it's about how to read lit more in-depth SEND HELP.  
> (Also why am I writing 3 fanfics simultaneously I hate myself)  
> OKAY BYE


	7. The One in Which Trust Goes Out the Window

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Voltron gets into contact with Lotor for the first time since the Tarvin mission, and Keith is paranoid as hell (justifiably so, in his opinion).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this took so long guys (okay so it was six days but compared to my other updates it's a long time). School starts on Thursday, and I'm not done with my work (chapter 8 won't go up until my work is done), and I've had a lot going on. My mental health took a nosedive off a cliff Saturday night, and I've been out of it since. Anxiety, depression, and writer's block triple-teamed me. 
> 
> But chapter 7 is finally here!! I hope you enjoy it!

Chapter 7

            “No one’s tried stopping me yet,” Pidge whispered to Hunk. “Data dump is about fifty-seven percent complete. We could be done before Lotrash even shows his ugly face.”

            The Paladins, in reaching Galra-occupied airspace near Tarvin, a part of their effort to find out where the Bovona System was, had gotten close enough for Pidge to hack into Galra communication networks. The Green Paladin had worked swiftly, jumping from network to network, pulling what she could from each ship she jumped through, until she latched onto a signal that led all the way back to Central Command. After ten minutes of going undetected, the Paladins agreed to start up a transmission, because something seemed…off. They should have gotten a transmission from Lotor, bragging about his successes on Tarvin, dangling Keith and Lance over them. They should have been detected by now.

            Even on Pidge’s best days, she would have no more than a few minutes before someone figured out something was up, when hacking into a high-security network like the one on Central Command.

            “Y’think maybe they’re trying to hack us right back or something?” Hunk whispered.

            Pidge shook her head. “Nah. The castle would’ve gotten an alert, and I’ve…made a few modifications, in the last few months. If we were being hacked, we’d _know_.”

            Hunk made a soft noise, satisfied with the explanation, unwilling to question what Pidge meant by _modifications,_ and continued to watch Pidge pull data from Central Command, pointing out little details here and there. The two of them were as quiet as possible, at Pidge’s computer station—Hunk angling himself so that Pidge’s screens were mostly obscured from the video feed being transmitted to…well, not Lotor. Not yet. Right now, the team was looking at a random guard, who shifted uncomfortably on his feet as Shiro and Allura stared him down.

            Coran, for once, wasn’t on the bridge. He was probably down in one of the meeting halls the team used for super-diplomatic meetings aboard the ship, looking at a secluded map of the stars, away from the prying eyes of the Galra. Pidge was feeding him all of the information from a separate, smaller screen to her left.

            _“Hm. Team Voltron. What is it? I was in the middle of something particularly important, and I’ve no time for pleasantries or small talk. Get to your point.”_

            Pidge’s head snapped up to the screen at the front of the bridge. Lotor strode forward, clearly aggravated with the current circumstances. His eyes flicked between Shiro and Allura, front and center; he barely spared Pidge and Hunk a glance.

            _Better for us,_ Pidge thought, dropping her gaze back down to the data in front of her.

            “You know what we want,” Shiro said, voice hard.

            Lotor cocked his head to the side.

            _“Is this about your missing Paladins?”_ Lotor asked. _“I noticed. You seem to be without two of them. And the adviser. Where_ is _your adviser—?_ _”_

            “None of your concern,” Allura cut in. “What have you done with Lance and Keith?”

            It was an empty question. The team knew exactly what had happened. Lotor had Lance—it didn’t take much of a genius to figure out that his _something particularly important_ was probably code for _attempted canoodling with a one Lance McClain_ —and sent Keith out to his utter doom in some star system the castle didn’t have logged.

            It was a matter of seeing whether or not Lotor would lie to them.

            _He_ _’s going to lie to us and you know it,_ Hunk had said, before starting the transmission. _He thinks we don_ _’t know. He’ll try to throw us off any way he can._

            _Then we_ _’re gonna bleed their computers dry and see what_ those _give us,_ Pidge had replied.

            The data dump reached sixty-eight percent. Pidge needed this transmission to continue to serve as a distraction while the data continued to transfer. As soon as she had everything, the team could scare Lotor off, but for now, Pidge needed him talking.

            _“So it_ is _those two,_ _”_ Lotor remarked, sounding rather bored. _“I was hoping for something more exciting than that.”_

            “Where are our Paladins, Lotor?” Allura asked, voice hard as she crossed her arms.

            Lotor rolled his eyes. _“And what makes you think I’ll just_ tell _you? It_ _’s not like you’ll come and attack Central Command when you’re missing two Lions.”_

            Data dump at seventy-two.

            _“After all,”_ Lotor went on, _“you’re missing your most stubborn Paladin, aren’t you? I know_ he _would waste no time coming here to rescue that dear lover of his. But, alas_ _…he’ll never get that chance ever again.”_

            Shiro stiffened at the front of the bridge. “What do you mean by that?”

            _He_ _’s not dead, Shiro,_ Pidge wanted to say, but then again, how good was Shiro at acting? His surrender of Black back on Eddul had been convincing, at least.

            _“Well…the latest reports from my commanders have confirmed the Red One as dead, but we all know how he is. I’ve thought him dead before,”_ Lotor said. _“I suppose it’s become obvious to you that Red is not on my ship. Or at Central Command. But, with three different people reporting they’ve_ seen _his dead body, well_ _…”_

            Data dump at seventy-nine.

            Pidge wasn’t sure Shiro was breathing properly. He definitely was struggling to move, up until he staggered back, Allura reaching out a hand to steady him. He shook his head, brought his hands up to his hair. Pidge knew this behavior. Knew a breakdown was coming.

            “Watch the data,” she hissed at Hunk, and stood up from her seat.

            _“Can’t handle the news of dear brother, Champion?”_ Lotor taunted, either oblivious to or ignoring Pidge. _“Rest assured, my soldiers and officers at the scene made sure he suffered until the end.”_

            Pidge continued walking forward until she stood directly between the screen and Shiro. She shot a glance at Allura over her shoulder; Allura had one hand on Shiro’s back, another on his hand, trying to coax him away from a breakdown or flashback. She met Pidge’s gaze and gave her a tight nod, and then went right back to whispering reassurances to the Black Paladin.

            _“Oh, what’s this? The Green One is going to deign to speak to me?”_ Lotor said. _“What, are you the person they put in charge when none of the more capable Paladins can handle things?”_

            Pidge pointedly pushed her glasses up her nose.

            “Funny,” she said, “that’s not how you acted when Lance and I were going to kick your ass on Eddul, and you ran away from us.”

            Lotor opened his mouth to try and interrupt and save his dignity, but Pidge kept going.

            “My credentials aside, let’s say I believe you. What are you going to do with his body now? Have _you_ seen it for yourself?”

            Pidge raised her eyebrows and crossed her arms. These were incredibly pointless questions, and she hoped she wasn’t about to scare Lotor away with them. But she needed him rambling. The data should’ve been at eighty-something percent—a little ways left to go. Even if the transmission cut off, they probably had a few minutes before they were detected, but…still.

            _“Are you questioning_ my _credentials?_ _”_ Lotor asked. _“I’ve seen the body. In a transmission—”_

            “Nope,” Pidge interrupted. “You said three different people confirmed he was dead, but you didn’t actually know it yourself. Try again.”

            Pidge now understood why Keith didn’t ever shut his mouth around Lotor. His expression shifted, from incredulous to perplexed. Pidge supposed most of Lotor’s subordinates didn’t question him. Probably because they hardly paid attention to his bluffing. Watching him flounder was amusing.

            _…This is probably the same reason he toys with Shiro._

That thought sobered Pidge; this was not a game.

            _Lance and Keith are depending on you._

            _“Are you always like this?”_ Lotor asked, cocking his head. _“A complete know-it-all with a refusal to stop talking?”_

            “Not really, but I’ll take that as a compliment. So, back to the important thing: Keith and Lance.”

            She narrowed one eyebrow and left the other arched. _Challenge me, bro. I dare you._

            _“Well then,”_ Lotor said, trying to regain whatever shreds of composure he had left, _“seeing as you don’t believe me when it comes down to the Red Paladin’s fate, I don’t suppose you’ll believe me if I tell you anything about the Blue One. Especially not when I say that he has no desire to return to you all.”_

            “What’s that supposed to mean?” Pidge asked.

            Lance? No desire to return? He _hated_ Lotor. Unless…

            Lotor shrugged, a smirk coming over his face. _“Nothing too serious, Green Paladin. He’s here. He’s unharmed for now. And he’s not returning.”_

            Pidge looked over her shoulder again, at Allura and Shiro, at Hunk. Hunk cut a glance to the computer and then back at Pidge, shaking his head.

            The data dump still wasn’t done.

            “Prove it,” Pidge said, turning back to Lotor. “You say you have Lance? You say he’s okay? Prove it.”

            Lotor made a clicking noise with his tongue.

            _“I’m afraid I cannot, Green One—”_

            “And why not?”

            Pidge stared Lotor down, and for a moment, he could do nothing but return the look, taken aback that Pidge would dare to speak to him this way, when he had Lance in his possession, as if she hadn’t acted just as rudely when Keith was parading around as Ryou, when Lance and Keith were caught in their charade.

            _“I’m afraid that’s information for me to know and for you to futilely beg for,”_ Lotor replied.

            “Good to go,” Hunk muttered behind Pidge.

            _“Good to go on what?”_ Lotor asked, craning his neck, as though it would help him see beyond Pidge and Hunk, see the computer they’d been working at.

            “That information is for us to know and for you to futilely beg for,” Pidge deadpanned.

            Lotor actually gasped.

            _“Did you just—”_

            “Lance and Keith,” Pidge interrupted. “If you’re not going to show us proof, we have little reason to believe you. Do you wanna prove me wrong or what?”

            Hunk came up behind Pidge, hands on his hips. He’d shut the computer off and came to join his younger companion at the front of the bridge, completely sealing Shiro and Allura out of Lotor’s line of sight.

            “We’re waiting,” Hunk said.

            Lotor looked between the two of them, the stern looks on their faces, and slowly shook his head, forcing another smirk to his face.

            _“Another time, Paladins. Things are…sensitive at the moment. Perhaps in another few quintants, you’ll be allowed to see the Blue One.”_

            “And Keith?” Pidge pressed. “Don’t tell me you seriously think I think he’s dead.”

            _“Believe what you want,”_ Lotor replied. _“But know that you’ll never see him again. Not where he’s gone.”_

            The transmission cut off there, and all Pidge could think was, _well, he_ _’s still a dramatic little fucker._

            But then she heard Shiro fighting to take deep breaths, and she and Hunk turned around.

            Shiro sat back on his knees, hands braced on his thighs. Allura had one hand over his right, and another hand on his back, encouraging him to breathe, counting off the seconds with him.

            “Hey,” Pidge said, kneeling down in front of Shiro, while Hunk took up a position at his left. “You know he’s bluffing. This is _Keith_ we’re talking about.”

            “I know, I know, I’m sorry,” Shiro muttered.

            “No need to be sorry,” Hunk said.

            “Black—she says she can feel him. They still have a bond, and she knows he’s out there. She just can’t pinpoint where. We’re too far from Keith for them to communicate,” Shiro said. “But, I…I got them into this. I put them in danger by sending them to Tarvin Three, and…Keith, he’s like my brother, a-and the thought of him dead—”

            “We know,” Allura interrupted softly. “We know, Shiro.”

            “We’re gonna find them. We got a ton of information from Central Command _and_ from their ships. The Galra don’t realize a thing,” Pidge said.

            Hunk sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Yeah, about that…isn’t that a little strange to anyone else? We never got caught. Once. Where are all of the people monitoring their computers? I mean, Pidge, I don’t doubt your hacking skills, but we’ve always been caught. But we went for what, fifteen, twenty minutes straight without detection?”

            The hacking discussion seemed to draw Shiro out of his breakdown, and bring him back into a tactical, strategic mindset. He rose slowly to his feet, Allura and Hunk at either side of him.

            “Remember that Marmorite? Tiva?” Shiro asked. “Don’t you think if something was up, she would’ve gotten into contact with us somehow? Don’t you think we would’ve gotten an update on Lance or Keith already?”

            “We haven’t heard from her since before Tarvin,” Pidge remarked.

            “You don’t think Lotor killed her, do you?” Hunk asked slowly.

            “If he did, it wasn’t in the arena,” Allura said. “Arena fights are spectacles. We would’ve heard him bragging by now. This…none of this _makes sense._ ”

            “We’re still in the mindset that Lotor’s actions are predictable and sensible,” Pidge said. “He’s unhinged and switches up plans like there’s no tomorrow. Now that Zarkon and Haggar are gone, no one’s there to stop him from doing whatever he wants. Including ridding himself of people he thinks are a threat. Maybe he did it again, but covertly.”

            “We’re going to need to look at the data you pulled, Pidge,” Shiro said. “There’s gotta be something useful.”

            “I’m on it.”

* * *

            Luce drove for hours, straight through this planet’s equivalent of night, and Keith had plenty of time to make a mental timeline for himself of everything that had happened to him so far.

            Day one: the botched mission on Tarvin Three.

            Day two: waking up in a van, escaping, and finding Luce.

            Day three: dawning.

            Thin rays of  light filtered through increasing cloud-cover. By the day’s end, Keith guessed that it would rain. Whether it would be drops of water falling from the sky, like on Earth, or hot chunks of rock like on Altea, Keith wasn’t sure yet. All he knew was that it would probably put a damper on getting a ship and getting off of this planet, wasting time he didn’t have.

            Keith sighed through his nose.

            “You’re still awake?” Luce remarked from the driver’s seat, mildly surprised. “I thought you’d fallen asleep vargas ago. You’ve been awfully silent.”

            Keith didn’t turn to look at her. He wasn’t in the mood for small talk with Luce; she may have saved his life, but that didn’t mean he trusted her. Even if she’d given him a gun. Even if she didn’t shoot him on sight earlier, or knock him back out. Even if he was sitting in the passenger seat of her truck, instead of being bound and gagged in the back.

            She was still a stranger, she still had knowledge of this planet and the area’s politics that he didn’t, and if his other encounters on this planet so far were any indication, she would have no problem lying to him.

            “I wish I had,” Keith muttered irritably.

            _Stop trying to distract me,_ he thought. Once he gave way to small talk, there was no telling what he’d let slip. Not when he hadn’t slept or eaten in what felt like years. Small talk would give way to more open conversation, and would lead to trust, and then Keith would let his guard down, and he was keeping that _up._

            _Find something to do. Take stock of your surroundings._

            Lance probably would’ve had this place mapped out already, would probably have chosen all the best hiding spots to lie in wait with his rifle, the best angles for shooting—

            _Don_ _’t. Not now._

            They hadn’t even been separated for forty-eight hours. Keith had gone a lot longer without seeing other people, and he’d never missed those people once. But the circumstances. And the fact that it was _Lance_. Keith’s chest ached; what he wouldn’t give to have his sharpshooter at his side right now.

            _You won_ _’t see him again if you don’t get off of this planet, now_ focus _, Kogane._

            Right. Surroundings. The truck had left the mountains about an hour or two ago, passing few other vehicles. It made sense—Keith didn’t think very many people would want to be going to the market in the middle of the night. If it even operated at those hours.

            Luce now drove the truck through winding backroads, surrounded by tall trees. Between the colors differing from those of Earth’s trees, and the little light being let in by the clouds, and the abnormal sky color, everything set Keith on edge. Almost as though this were the beginning to a horror movie.

            _Teenager stuck on foreign planet and forced to rely on stranger with a gun and a truck for survival,_ Keith thought to himself. _Yeah. Sounds like a horror movie to me._

            Things only got worse when Keith spied dim lights up ahead, lights that grew in number the further along the road they went. Between the trees, Keith made out distant houses. They almost looked more like mansions, spaced far apart from each other, obscured amongst the woods.

            _I don_ _’t like this._

            “What is this place?” Keith found himself asking.

            He expected a hangar. He expected aircrafts. He expected to be able to throw himself out of this truck, steal the gun, hijack a ship, and blast off.

            “It’s where I live,” Luce answered. “Most of this neighborhood is filled with members of the Obscurities. Some others aren’t, but those that aren’t are pretty quiet. I find them trustworthy. We’re more well-off in this area—no one here really goes to the market unless it’s a rescue operation. Those that find out about a rescue keep quiet.”

            There was an edge to her voice. Keith’s fingers hovered over the button that would unclasp his seatbelt that he’d so foolishly put on.

            _Push it. If you need to make an escape, you_ _’re gonna need to be quick. Take off the damn seatbelt._

            He tried to silence the click as much as he could, but Luce must’ve still heard it. She laughed, never taking her eyes off of the road.

            “You’re still afraid, aren’t you?”

            “Why aren’t we at a hangar?”

            Keith didn’t like the way his voice caught. _You_ _’re a Paladin. You can do this. You’ve survived by yourself before._

            “Our hangars only operate at night,” Luce answered. “And you need to rest and eat something and get cleaned up, before you collapse. You’re in no shape to be flying.”

            Luce continued weaving through the trees. There was no rhyme or reason to the layout of the houses. Keith couldn’t see a single driveway, or walkway, or _anything._ It was as though these mansions just dropped out of the sky.

            _I really don_ _’t like this._

            He wasn’t in immediate danger. Not yet.

            So far, Luce was still a potential ally.

            The moment she became a real threat, though…

            Keith’s eyes drifted down to the gun in his lap. If Luce had wanted to hurt him or capture him, she wouldn’t have given him her only weapon. Right?

            _Guard. Up._

            Shiro wasn’t here to do all the talking. Hunk wasn’t here to be the voice of reason and let Keith know that his paranoia was justified. Pidge wasn’t here to marvel at the tech of this place, or plot a way out in case things went wrong. And Lance wasn’t here to be a comforting presence at Keith’s side, wasn’t here to charm the pants off of anyone and everyone who came his way, wasn’t here to protect his team at a moment’s notice.

            Keith was on his own.

            _This is not your first time alone. Stop acting like it._

            Luce drove on, and cut a sharp turn that sent Keith flying into his door.

            “Sorry,” Luce muttered.

            Keith glared. “Thanks.”

            Luce didn’t reply. She was too focused on driving down the narrowing road, until she came to a gate. She rolled down a window and stuck a hand out— _fingerprint scanner? Do these people have fingerprints?_ —and moments later, the gate opened, and the truck rumbled on through. Just two more minutes of driving brought the truck to what appeared to be a parking garage.

            It was a rectangle-shaped building, one which Keith could hardly make out. Foliage and vines, gnarled tree branches and roots growing around it, obscured most of it from view, and the levels descended instead of ascended. Luce brought the truck down to the lowest level, denoted by a sign on the wall (at least, that’s what Keith thought it said) and pulled into a space in a tight corner.

            _Teenager goes down to lowest level of sketchy building in the woods, in a shadowy corner with the stranger he is forced to rely on. His door has barely any room to open. This would be the perfect place to murder him._

            Luce cut the engine.

            _Guard up._

            “Follow me,” she said, and opened her door and got out of her truck. Keith opened his door as best he could and shimmied his way out of his seat, holding the door open before it could swing back in on him and crush his legs. Luce was already walking through the garage, and Keith hurried to catch up with her. The way his footsteps echoed, she would’ve known if he stopped, so Keith felt a little better trailing her from behind.

            Not once did she demand her gun back. Not once did she ask for Keith to step in front of her, so she could keep an eye on him.

            _Guard up._

            Luce led Keith all the way to a door, where another fingerprint scanner waited. She put her hand down on it, and moments later, the door opened.

            _Great. No chance I can bust out of this place._

            Luce stepped through the door, and Keith followed, into a little foyer. There was an elevator here, and a stairwell. Keith looked to Luce for explanation, but she had his back to him, having already pressed the button for the elevator. Something settled heavily in the bottom of Keith’s stomach—he would much rather have taken the stairs. Elevators were already bad enough on their own—tight little spaces, where one malfunction would leave him trapped—but being stuck in one with a stranger? Whose intentions were still unclear? Hell to the fucking _no._

            Keith didn’t have a choice.

            The elevator opened. Luce stepped in and gestured for Keith to join her. He did so warily, fully prepared to fire the gun in his hands if things went wrong.

            “This elevator will lead us to a network of tunnels,” Luce explained, once the doors shut, and she and Keith were totally alone. “The tunnels each connect to one of the houses in this neighborhood. It’s how members of the Obscurities communicate their information to each other undetected.”

            Keith gave her a tight nod—all he could manage.

            _Teenager is trapped in sketchy elevator with sketchy stranger under sketchy circumstances, on foreign planet with a layout he doesn_ _’t know, in a really sketchy neighborhood._

            The elevator finally came to a stop, and the doors opened. At this hour, the tunnel network was devoid of life; Keith heard no echoing voices, no footsteps. Not a single person came into his line of sight, save for Luce. She led him to one tunnel in particular, denoted with a series of letters and numbers Keith hardly memorized by the time they walked by it. None of the letters were in a language he could put together.

            The end of the tunnel led to another foyer, not unlike the one in the parking garage. Like the other one, there were stairs here, and then an elevator, which Luce opted for. Again.

            Keith situated himself in the corner of the elevator for the short ride up. At least he knew nothing would attack him from behind—it was just Luce in front of him that he had to worry about.

            “Are you always like this?” Luce had the nerve to ask.

            “Like what?” Keith replied.

            Luce waved her hand at him, vaguely. “Paranoid. Is it just a you thing? Or are all of the Paladins like this?”

            “I feel like that’s not an important question,” Keith answered.

            _The less she knows about me and the team, the better._

“Someone’s irritable,” Luce said.

            Keith was only reminded of Lotor and his constant remarks about Keith’s attitude, as if his wasn’t any better. It didn’t exactly help Keith to feel any more relaxed in Luce’s presence.

            The elevator finally came to a halt, and Keith realized that he hadn’t been paying attention to the symbols on the little screen. He had no idea how many floors, if any, they’d passed on the way up to Luce’s house.

            “Here we are,” Luce said, as the doors opened. “Let me show you around.”

            Luce stepped out of the elevator and began a tour of the bottom floor of the house. Keith took everything in—the couches in the living room, the kitchen, the office, the small dining room, a bathroom. A trip upstairs yielded a few more offices, a couple bedrooms, another two bathrooms, and one room with a closed door—made of metal, like all of the others—marked _KEEP OUT._

            “What’s in there?” Keith asked.

            Luce looked wistfully at that one. “I had a son.”

            _Had._

            “Oh…I’m sorry,” Keith said.

            Luce waved him off. “Years ago. I should be over it by now. Come along, this is where you’ll be sleeping,” Luce said, and led Keith to another empty bedroom. Keith took stock: one bed, a dresser, a side table, a plant hanging in the corner of the room, and a bare desk.

            “There are some clothes that—” Luce looked Keith up and down, “— _should_ fit you, in the dresser. Get changed, wash up in the bathroom. Breakfast is in about a varga. Then you can spend the rest of the day resting. We’ll leave before nightfall.”

            Keith nodded, and Luce left, shutting the door behind her. She didn’t even ask for her gun back.

* * *

            Washing up, to Keith, meant taking a quick shower, scrubbing his jumpsuit clean, and then putting it right back on. It was his best defense against an attack—the clothes in the dresser were all meant for a civilian. Not someone who spent their days running from bullets and other projectiles, and enemies who wanted you dead.

            At breakfast, Luce made no comment about the fact that Keith hadn’t put on any of the clothes she left for him. She hardly spoke at all, while Keith pushed around the food on his plate, only eating when Luce stared for too long. When he didn’t immediately die, when a body part didn’t start tingling or go numb, Keith deemed the food safe for consumption.

            After breakfast, he went right back to his room, shut the door, and began to plot his way out of here.

            One thing in particular he noticed about this house: no windows. Not a window in the living room, or near the front door, or in any of the rooms he’d peered inside. When he thought back on the lights coming from the houses they’d passed, Keith decided that either they _had_ windows, and Luce was a sketchy hermit, or none of the others had windows, either, and the lights were exterior lights.

            Either way: Keith could not see outside, and nobody in passing could see in.

            _Okay. If I break out, I need the gun, and I need to either get to the elevator, or get to that door. If I get to the elevator, I_ _’m in those tunnels until I can find my way back to the garage. If I bust out the front, I’m in the woods, but at least I’m outside, and I can get away on foot._

            Some indeterminate amount of time passed before Keith felt sleepy, the exhaustion of the day crashing into him. He hadn’t slept—truly slept, not just been knocked unconscious for a while—since before the Tarvin mission. Keith looked around, and found an alarm clock in the drawers of the side table. He set it for a few hours—four, he settled for, and placed it on the table.

            He didn’t put on the blankets—he lay down right on top of them, gun next to him. When he woke up, he’d be re-energized, and then he was _leaving._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so when I was in the city, my parents and I stayed at this hotel, and it was a nightmare scenario for several reasons, but the parking garage was SO SKETCHY. AND DARK. IT WAS THE CREEPIEST THING EVER. 
> 
> Anyway, like I said, chapter 8 isn't going up until my summer work is done (I've done nothing since my last fic update, in case you were wondering, because I'm a procrastinating asshole), but also, school starts on Thursday, so uploads will definitely take longer (I'm taking four AP classes rest in pieces).
> 
> On the bright side, I already know what goes down in a large portion of chapter 8, and all I have to say is...well, character(s?)-I-can't-name, I'm so sorry. 
> 
> See ya in the next update!!


	8. The One in Which Keith and Lance Miss Each Other

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith's having a really rough time. By comparison, Lance is faring only slightly better.  
>  _Very_ slightly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh, trigger warnings for this chapter? Because that's a thing?  
> 1\. A lot of **swearing** in the first half, because _thanks, Keith._  
>  2\. **Non-con drug use!!** Because oh boy we're suffering!  
>  3\. **Needles.** I dunno, needles wig me out sometimes. If anyone gets seriously triggered by them, they're in this chapter.  
>  4\. I don't know if it can be considered this, but **dubcon** kissing?? (Can you see where this is going?)  
>  5\. More **vomit.**
> 
> If anyone needs to skip the chapter, I'll put in a summary at the end note.
> 
> My poor boys are suffering. Also, I've got about 30 hours before my butt needs to be in a chair in AP Lit, and I haven't read either book. It's 2 AM and I'm about to pull an all-nighter to get this shit done. I was _gonna_ do some work, but then it just...didn't happen. I can't focus on psych for more than two minutes, the author of my required AP Lit book is annoying and condescending as fuck...so I just...wrote this chapter.
> 
> Anyway, enough talking, have at it.

Chapter 8

            Keith didn’t wake up in the same place he fell asleep.

            He opened his eyes to bright fluorescent lights that _definitely_ hadn’t been in his room. There was not a blanket or even a mattress underneath him—it was a cold slab of metal. When Keith tried to move and get a better view of the room, he found his wrists clamped down, his ankles clamped down, his neck clamped down to the slab.

            _Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck._

            The slab was completely horizontal, allowing Keith a very limited view of his surroundings. In his periphery, he could see machines, monitors with symbols he didn’t understand, next to him. These machines, he guessed, were taking his vitals. It wasn’t that far-fetched of an idea, considering the nodes he registered on his head, on what little part of his neck wasn’t covered by the clamp, and the needles and tubes hooked up to his arms.

            _How the fuck. How._

Keith was usually a light sleeper. Especially in foreign places. Had he been that exhausted, that he’d crashed hard enough for Luce— _this is Luce_ _’s doing, right?_ —to get the jump on him? And where _was_ he, anyway? Had he been knocked out? Brought back to the market and sold off?

_How long have I been out?_

            Hours? Days? A week? A month?

            _Don_ _’t—not a month, it can’t be, what about Lance—_

            “Subject X29-VEN’s brainwaves showing signs of conscious activity.”

            _Subject X29-VEN. They mean me._

            Keith craned his neck as much as the clamp would allow, eyes following the sounds of shuffling feet. Several masked figures came into view. From their varying statures and varying numbers of limbs—all decked out in the same white coats—Keith tried to piece his situation together.

            He was in a lab. Not all of these people were native Bovonans. Or at least, not all of them were native to this _planet_ , because Keith saw very few who looked even remotely humanoid. One, he was able to recognize as Tarvinian, between the elongated mask, the clawed hands nearly poking through their gloves, and the tail, sticking awkwardly out of the back of their coat. The others’ races were lost on Keith.

            One of the masked…scientists? Doctors?

            _Creeps,_ Keith decided.

            One of the masked creeps approached Keith and stood over him, peering at his face, glancing again at the screens, and then turning away, shuffling back toward the others, muttering something Keith couldn’t understand.

            “Hey!” Keith called to them. “Where am I? Who the hell are you?”

            Admittedly, shouting and swearing and demanding answers from strange masked people with innumerable unidentifiable tools, while restrained and unable to fight back, was probably not Keith’s brightest idea. Somehow, he only came to realize this when one of them stalked over to him, needle in hand.

            “No, don’t put that thing— _no_ — _what is that_ —”

            Keith pulled on the restraints holding down his arms, pulled on the one around his neck, but they were made of metal, and they weren’t budging. He couldn’t even squirm away as one of the creeps grabbed his head to steady it.

            “Get that away from me! Where the _fuck am I?!_ ” Keith shouted. “Let me go!”

            The creep, unfazed by Keith’s shouting, said something to the others in the room, and Keith realized that they weren’t speaking a language he knew. Or if they were, they were talking in serious code. Another one of the creeps came around to Keith’s other side, laying more hands on his head.

            “Don’t touch me!” Keith snapped, and tried to jerk away, but with three hands holding him back, along with the neck restraint, he couldn’t.

            The first creep jabbed the needle into Keith’s neck. Keith whined a little at the pinch, and immediately, his senses began failing him.

            _Nonononononono—_

            The creeps let him go and left the table, back to whatever they were working on earlier.

            “No!” Keith shouted, vision going spotty, limbs going numb. “What the hell— _what_ _’s in that needle—_ ”

            Nobody answered him, and nobody paid him mind as unconsciousness claimed him.

* * *

            When Keith woke up the second time, he was still in the same position—on the slab, clamped down. It felt as though all of his bones had been replaced with lead—his limbs were too heavy, he couldn’t move his fingers or toes, even lifting his head wasn’t an option. His brain must’ve woken up before the rest of him; either that, or whatever had been in the needle was _meant_ to fuck him up like this.

            _It better be that first one._

            “Subject is awake and ready for stage three,” a voice called, floating from somewhere across the room.

            Keith had several thoughts pass through his head in that moment: _Why can I understand them now? Are they switching languages? Talking in code? And what the fuck is stage three? Stage three of what? Why won_ _’t anyone tell me what’s going on? Where am I? How long was I out?_

            His tongue felt like cotton, and he couldn’t talk past it, and was left to glare daggers at the creeps who all began moving toward him.

            “Can you tell us your name?” one of them asked.

            Keith tried to say something like _go to hell._

            “Ah, system’s still asleep,” one of the other said. “Wisbie, wake him up.”

            _No, don_ _’t do that,_ Keith wanted to say, but between his burdensome tongue, and the sudden current of electricity shooting through his body, eliciting screams, he couldn’t. It must’ve lasted for a shorter time than it felt like—when the electricity finally fizzled out, Keith was left panting against the slab, sucking as much air into his lungs as he could.

            “What the _fuck,_ ” Keith groaned.

            “Excellent,” the creep who’d asked for his name said. “Now, can you tell us your name?”

            “Go fuck yourself,” Keith answered.

            The same creep _tsk_ ed at him. “Now, now, answer truthfully, or else you’ll just receive another shock.”

            _What the fuck is happening._

“So, can you tell us your name?” they repeated.

            Keith shut his eyes.

            “Ryou Takashi,” he breathed, on instinct.

            “Mmm…we don’t seem to have a record… _oh_ , you mean Takashi Shirogane?” the creep said.

            Keith’s heart sped up, eyes shot open. _Takashi Shirogane—oh fuck, fucking shit—_

            The Eruda Center. The visitors’ log.

            “His armor is that of the Red Paladin, I believe. However, these files have Takashi Shirogane as the _Black_ Paladin…” another one of the creeps said, peering more closely at Keith, and the shoulder blades of his jumpsuit.

            “So it would appear,” the creep conducting the questioning replied. “He has lied to us. Shock him.”

            “No, no, wait—!”

            Keith cut himself off with his own screams. The electricity running over his bones dredged up a memory of being restrained to the slab in Lotor’s interrogation room, being fried alive by Haggar’s druid magic. This was slightly different, slightly less controlled, and slightly more painful.

            “Can you tell us your name, Paladin?” the ringleader asked again, once the shocking stopped.

            “Keith,” Keith choked out, barely managing a glare in the ringleader’s direction before another jolt of electricity ran through him. “ _Kogane!_ Keith Kogane, you sadistic shits!”

            “Ah, that seems to match the file,” the file-reading creep said, a sickening tone of amusement in their voice.

            “What do you want with me? Where am I?” Keith demanded.

            These people were not conservative with their use of the electric shocks. Keith screamed again, another current running through him.

            _They_ _’re gonna kill me, fucking hell._

            “We’ll be the ones asking the questions,” the ringleader said. “You’ll be providing the most honest answers you can. You’ve experienced exactly what will happen if you don’t. Eventually, if we get bored, we may just turn up the voltage…”

            “The Emperor needs this data,” a voice cut in from across the room. “Don’t _kill him,_ Ursho. At least not until we’ve got what we need.”

            _Emperor._

_Lotor._

_He knows. He has something to do with this._

            “Say it louder, Cha’asti! Maybe he didn’t _hear you!_ ” the ringleader—Ursho, apparently—shot back.

            The creep reading off the files spat something back at both of them in the same strange language from before, and moments later, others were rushing to Keith’s side, to hold his head down. Ursho disappeared and returned seconds later, another needle in hand.

            “Let me go!” Keith shouted. “Don’t you dare stick that needle in me, I’ll _kill you for this—!_ ”

            A few of the creeps around him snickered, one of them daring to mutter something in English— _he thinks he_ _’ll be able to kill us, that’s adorable_ —before the needle pinched Keith’s neck.

            “Fuck all of y- _you_ _…_ ”

* * *

             The third time Keith woke up, he was still restrained— _dammit, I was hoping for a different outcome_ —but the room was empty, utterly silent, save for his labored breathing and the soft humming and whirring of the machines next to him. The fluorescent light above his head was out; he could only see thanks to the glow of the monitors on the machines.

            _Okay. You_ _’re alone. You’ve got no way out of here. Great._

            He also had no handle on the time. How long had he been trapped here? It couldn’t have been a _month,_ right? Not even a week, right? He couldn’t stomach the idea of that much time having passed while he was stuck here, because that meant the team hadn’t found him yet, hadn’t figured out a rescue operation. Were they going to rescue Lance first?

            _Please. Please save him._

            Right then, Keith heard distant commotion. Shouting. Clanging. _Is that—_

            The door to the room opened, and the sounds amplified, metal-on-metal, yelling, laser blasts. Just seconds later, a figure darted into the room, and shut the door behind them. If it were anyone else, the darkness would’ve made it hard to tell who’d entered, but Keith knew that posture. Knew their outline. Knew the sound of the indistinct whispering.

            “L-Lance?”

            The figure turned, rolling their shoulders, slowly approaching the slab Keith lay down on. Keith couldn’t help but smile, relaxing against the cold metal.

            _It_ _’s him. It’s really him._

            “Lance,” Keith breathed, “you’re here, h-how—”

            “I can’t believe this,” Lance interrupted.

            Keith couldn’t make out his face from where Lance stood, his top half obscured in shadows, but he could plainly see the bayard, in rifle form, held at the ready.

            “Me neither,” Keith said. “I don’t know wh-who these people are, just that—”

            “You’ve been here this whole time. Utterly helpless,” Lance interrupted again.

            Keith’s smile dropped from his face. “Lance, _what?_ ”

            Something heavy pooled in Keith’s stomach, a liquid that solidified and pulled tighter, a frigid rock at his core.

            Lance stepped closer, until the light from the screens caught his face, caught the sneer he wore as he stared down at Keith. Keith found himself searching Lance’s eyes, finding nothing but bitterness.

            “You let him take me,” Lance snapped. “I was waiting for you. Do you know how long I waited before I caved? The others found me, but not all of me came back with them.”

            _No. Lance, no_ _…_

            “I’m sorry,” Keith whispered, voice catching. “L-Lance, I _tried,_ I tried _so fucking hard_ —”

            “Not hard enough!” Lance shouted, and bent over Keith, pressing the barrel of his bayard to Keith’s forehead.

            _Please don_ _’t._

 _Please, Lance. Don_ _’t do this._

            Keith hadn’t realized he was speaking out loud.

            “L-Lance, please don’t do this. It’s me. Keith! Lance, I—”

            “What’s taking you so long?” another voice cut in.

            _Oh no. Fuck no. Nonononono. Anyone but him._

            Lance smirked down at Keith as a figure, taller than both of them, entered the room and crept up behind Lance, snaking arms around his waist, settling his chin into the crook of Lance’s neck. The place where _Keith_ _’s_ chin belonged. Keith’s blood ran cold as Lotor smiled down at him.

            “Hello, Red Paladin,” Lotor greeted.

            “Lotor? Wha—Lance, w-where’s the rest of the team?” Keith asked, voice wobbling. _Fucking shit, do not cry now, this is absolutely the last time—_

            “You’ll be joining them soon,” Lance answered.

            _No. He_ _…he wouldn’t. He’s_ Lance, _he would never. This can_ _’t be real._

            “Lance,” Keith said, “think about what you’re doing. P-Put down the bayard.”

            Lance’s smirk grew wider. Lotor smiled wider, and even leaned over to peck Lance on the cheek.

            _This isn_ _’t real. You need to wake up._

            “Oh, look at that,” Lotor remarked, snuggling up closer to Lance. “He’s resorted to begging. What do you think we should do, Lance?”

            “Get away from him,” Keith said, shifting his gaze to the emperor. “Get _away._ ”

            “Are you jealous?” Lotor asked, cocking his head. “Is it because you always seem to lose those dearest to you?”

            _Wake up wake up wake up._

            “No response? You’re no longer fun to play with,” Lotor said to Keith, before glancing at Lance. “Lance, I think you should kill him.”

            Keith’s eyes, too, returned to the Blue Paladin.

            “Lance, no, _this isn_ _’t you,_ snap out of it! Please! Lance, look at me. _Look at me,_ it’s _me,_ it’s _Keith_. You…you’d never hurt me. _Please,_ Lance.”

            Lance chuckled. “That’s funny. I seem to get hurt an awful lot when you’re involved. Lotor, I think you’re right. I’m sure the others will be glad to see him again.”

            _Nononononono. Wake up, wake up, WAKE UP, DAMMIT._

            Keith squeezed his eyes shut, a few tears sliding free down his cheeks.

            He managed one final whispered “Lance, _please—_ ”  just as Lance pulled the trigger.

* * *

            In the four days since his breakdown, Lance had left his room a grand total of four times, once each night for the same reason: dinner. The Galra only ever seemed to gather for the final meal of the day, and after nearly passing out in the shower on his second day since his breakdown from lack of food, Lance was forced to point out to Lotor that humans needed to eat _three times a day,_ at least, to be healthy. Breakfast and lunch were brought to him. Dinners were a spectacle.

            The first few days, Lance was able to get away with being meek. Memory loss meant he had no way of remembering whether or not he and Lotor were the cuddly type of couple, or the regular type, or those lovers-who-should-probably-break-up lovers, cold and distant.

            (Of course, seeing as they were none of those, in all actuality, Lotor had insisted on choosing the cuddly type. Cuddly bordering on inappropriately close. Lance decided early on that Pidge’s description of his relationship with Keith was an apt description for how Lotor wanted to be.)

            The night of his breakdown, Lance was allowed to eat dinner in his room, alone. He played it off as giving the cold shoulder to Lotor, for leaving him there while he dealt with…whatever he was dealing with. A transmission from the team, hopefully. The first day after, Lance and Lotor sat next to each other at a crowded table of the other officers, and the closest contact Lance would allow was hand-holding under the table.

            The second night after his breakdown, after he’d been given a lunch and promised three meals a day, Lotor tried to get closer to him. An arm around his waist as they walked to dinner. Chairs closer together. The third night was much of the same.

            Last night, the fourth night, Lotor seemed to be growing suspicious.

            Lance returned most of his affections, but kissing? Intimacy of that nature? Lance still shied away from it all, and he supposed that was the wrong move, given his attempt at kissing Lotor before they’d been interrupted. He was supposed to be fooling Lotor into thinking he was into this, after all. Running away from intimacy was exactly the sort of thing he _wasn_ _’t_ supposed to be doing.

            He had to rectify that. Today. Tonight.

            Between dinners, visits from Lotor were far and few in-between. Most often, Lance faked being asleep, or he ran and hid in the shower whenever he heard Lotor’s footsteps—his swaggering gait had a very unique sound, Lance had come to find out—echoing down the hallway outside of his door. Whenever Lotor did manage to catch him at a good time— _as good of a time as I can have in this place, I guess_ —Lance attacked, peppering Lotor with questions about the mission, about how he’d gotten his amnesia.

            He kept his guard up, kept his ears and eyes out for inconsistencies in Lotor’s stories.

            For once, _now of all times,_ Lotor had a laser-focus. His answers were as short as he could make them without making _Lance_ suspicious—although he already _was,_ given the fact that he knew _exactly_ what had gone down before he’d been knocked out—and he tried to change the subject. Constantly. So often that Lance sometimes just gave up on the conversation, feigning a sudden headache— _yeah, man, this head trauma sure is making me sleepy. No, I don_ _’t need to go to the druids, I can just take a nap and I’ll wake up fine._

            Lotor didn’t know very much about human head trauma or treatment.

            Lance had the upper hand there.

            A knock on his door dragged Lance from his thoughts, dread settling in the pit of his stomach, as per the usual. He sat up in bed, where he’d been lying down for the past hour, staring up at the ceiling, trying to figure out how to get _out of there_ undetected. No vents for him to climb through. No way to open the door from the inside. Lotor seemed to be the only one who ever came to his door—if Lance had guards, they were never around when he stepped out.

            This train of thought kept circling back around to one conclusion: he had to earn Lotor’s trust. Wholly. Undeniably.

            Fear kept Lotor from giving him a weapon or letting him out of the room. It wasn’t for Lance’s safety; it was so that Lotor wouldn’t suffer another preventable betrayal, or attempted assassination.

            Each time this solution came to him, Lance got lightheaded, until he pulled up the memory of his mirror pep talk.

            Between that, and his knowledge that if he had any chance of finding Keith, he needed to go through with this, Lance was able to steel himself. He was not going to break down.

            _Mama didn_ _’t raise a quitter._

_Keith needs you._

            _If you have any hope of getting out of here, you have to pull this off._

_You are not Lance McClain anymore. You are Jeremy Ortega._

_You are in love with Lotor._

_You_ _’re reunited with him after running around with the Paladins. They betrayed you and tried to kill you. You got knocked on the head, but Lotor will help you through this. You can trust him._

            “Come in,” Lance called, and the door opened up.

            Lotor strolled inside and plopped himself down on the bed. He bent one leg and sat it entirely on the mattress as he faced Lance, his other leg dangling off to the side. He braced his hands on his calf.

            “Jeremy,” Lotor said, “how are you feeling, my love?”

            “Much better,” Lance answered, purposely softening his voice. “Especially now that you’re here.”

            _That was the cringiest thing I_ _’ve ever said in my life,_ Lance thought, _and I_ _’ve said a_ lot _of cringe-y things before._

            Lance made a show of scooting closer to Lotor, until he stopped about a foot away from him. He slowly drew his legs into a crisscross position, and let his hands rest in his lap.

            “It feels like forever since I last saw you,” Lance said. “You’re always so busy.”

            _All right. Charm: on._

            “There’s still much to be done before I can relax, dearest Jeremy,” Lotor said, after a few seconds of delay.

            Lance did not miss the brief look of unease that flashed across Lotor’s face—the look of a dumbfounded lover. The look of someone not used to being put on the defensive like this. Lance intended to keep him there.

            “Something more important than me?” Lance asked. “After everything I’ve done for you? Didn’t you miss me at all? I risked my life for our empire.”

            _Our._ Not _your._ Lance was no stranger to flirting; one had to establish a connection, a common ground, something shared. The very first time Lance ever spoke directly to Lotor, Lotor had mentioned him bringing down Keith for the good of the empire. If he was going to be Jeremy Ortega, Lotor’s lover, that empire was no longer Lotor’s alone.

            “And for that, I am eternally grateful,” Lotor said. “And of course I missed you, my dear. I would have torn apart the universe to get you back.”

            Lotor reached out for once of Lance’s hands. While Lance allowed him to, one thought crossed his mind: that he knew Lotor wasn’t lying about tearing apart the universe to get him back, that wasn’t a bluff or random flirting—Lotor had actually done that.

            _But then he tried to make you his prisoner,_ Lance reminded himself, a grounding thought. _He knocked you out and had you chained._

            And then: _you_ _’re supposed to be playing up a romance right now, dammit._

            “I want to spend more time with you,” Lance said. He met Lotor’s gaze wistfully, and then dropped it down to their hands, now entwined.

            “My dear,” Lotor replied, “this is for your safety. Attempts have been made against my life, and those seeking to eliminate me would not hesitate to eliminate you, as well.”

            “I infiltrated the Voltron Paladins,” Lance insisted, voice borderline whiny. “They’re the most feared people in the universe, and I got through them, didn’t I? I can _handle_ myself—” _shoot, what nickname can I give him, ah, quiznak, uh, ohhh,_ fuck it _, he doesn_ _’t know anything about Earth cliches,_ “—sweetheart. Let me help you.”

            “I’m _sorry_ ,” Lotor said, “but it’s too _dangerous_ —”

            “I get so worried sometimes,” Lance interrupted. “What if you never come back? What if they kill you, Lotor? What if they kill you and then come for me? Let me be by your side. We can protect each other. And if we go down, we go down together.”

            _Keith, I_ _’m so sorry. I’m so,_ so _sorry._

            _I_ _’ll find you. I’m doing this for you._

            Lotor went quiet, contemplating Lance’s words, his expression dragging Lance back to reality, back to the situation at hand.

            “I don’t know,” Lotor started.

            _Keep him on the defensive._

            “Can I at least help you in making _this_ decision?” Lance asked.

            Lotor looked up, and before he could register what was happening, Lance leaned forward closed off the distance between them.

            _I_ _’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry Keith I’m so fucking sorry._

            Lance pulled back before Lotor had the chance to truly reciprocate, and forced himself to look into his eyes.

            _I_ _’m gonna puke._

            “Please,” Lance whispered, shoving down his discomfort. He tried to take pleasure in the fact that Lotor was completely flustered, the reigns of the situation now firmly in Lance’s grasp. “I can’t stay cooped up here anymore. I fear I may go mad if I remain separated from you any longer.”

            _Please let me out of here. I can_ _’t stay here by myself anymore, I need something to do, I need to find some way to contact the team, I need to find out where Keith is, I need Keith, I miss him, I need to know if he’s okay, let me out of this prison._

            Lance’s heart pounded harder, his blood turning cold in his veins.

            _Not now not now not now—_

 _“Relax, my child,”_ Blue’s voice echoed in his mind. _“This is difficult, I know. You must remain strong. I have faith in you; you must have faith in yourself. Keith is still alive, but he is not with you. You must take care of yourself right now.”_

            Somewhere else in his mind, Red purred her confirmation and agreement with Blue’s sentiments.

            _“Slow down,”_ Red said. _“Breathe.”_

            Ironic, coming from the Red Lion, but Lance heeded her words nonetheless.

            The Lions would watch over him, and they had a point.

            _Focus. Breathe and focus._

            “I need time,” Lotor finally said, and Lance could have cheered at his own victory when Lotor’s voice came out hoarse— _it could be an act—shut up, doubts, go away, I_ _’m celebrating_. “I must think this over.”

            Lotor rose to unsteady feet, letting go of Lance’s hand. He smiled warmly down at Lance as he did so, a reassurance that _yes, dear, I love you, this is still for your own good, I just want the best._

            “You’ll have your answer by dinner,” Lotor said. “I’ll return to escort you when the time comes, just like every other night.”

            In Lotor’s dazed state, he probably wouldn’t have caught Lance if he bolted for the door, but Lance stayed on the bed anyway. He couldn’t go out into the hallway. Not now; the moment Lotor left, and the door shut, and his footsteps faded away, Lance bolted for the bathroom, and barely made it to the toilet.

            _“You did well,”_ Blue tried to reassure him.

            _“Keith would never hold this against you,”_ Red added.

            _He wouldn_ _’t? Are you sure about that?_

            It was nearing on a week since he’d last seen Keith. Since Red had last been able to communicate with Keith, or get a true reading on his thoughts.

            _What if you reunite and he hates you?_ Lance thought, pulling himself off of the floor and dragging himself over to the sink, to scrub his mouth and face. _What if all this time separated_ _…what if he doesn’t want you anymore?_

            Lance raised his eyes to the mirror.

            “Stop it,” he whispered. “Stop thinking like that.”

            He and Keith had come a long way together, along with the rest of the team. A week or two apart wouldn’t be able to change that. If there was one thing Lance knew about Keith, it was that once he formed an attachment, he couldn’t let go.

            _I_ _’m gonna find you, Keith. I swear._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Summary for those who might've needed to skip:**  
>  -Keith wakes up in some strange lab. He gets knocked out with a drug via needle, wakes up, gets interrogated (and suffers electric shock torture during the attempted interrogation), and then gets knocked out via needle again.  
> -He has a nightmare where Lance seemingly comes to his rescue, only it turns out that he's with Lotor, and the rest of the team is dead, and the dream ends with Keith getting shot by Lance.  
> -Lance, meanwhile, needs a way out of his room, and the only way to do that is apparently to convince Lotor he's 100% Jeremy Ortega, hence, the dubcon(???????) kissing. Lance nearly has an anxiety attack, and pukes afterward.
> 
> So, two quick things before I go grind out my remaining schoolwork and consume unhealthy amounts of caffeine:  
> 1\. I hereby dedicate this chapter to everyone who told me that Lance and Keith needed to reunite soon. ;)  
> 2\. I want to chop off my hands and wash my eyes with bleach every time I write Lance/Lotor, I'm so sorry.
> 
> I have absolutely no idea when chapter 9 is going up, but I think I know which POVs I'm writing from, so hopefully no later than Sunday...?


	9. The One in Which Team Voltron Screws Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Voltron can't ignore their duties as Defenders of the Universe forever. A mission to answer a distress signal goes awry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so number one, thank you for all of your lovely comments, especially the people urging me to take care of my mental health first and not worry about this. Trust me when I say that writing this is what's helping me. I'm doing a lot of on-page venting. Whether or not it's noticeable, I don't know.
> 
> Number two, I made a public Instagram account where I post Voltron stuff and personal stuff, including mental health and writing updates, so follow it at [nerdyspaceace](https://www.instagram.com/nerdyspaceace/). 
> 
> Number three, I made another public twitter, I don't know how much I'll use it, but it's at [nerdyspxceace](https://twitter.com/nerdyspxceace) (nerdyspaceace was taken). 
> 
> Number four, I changed my tumblr url to [nerdyspaceace](http://nerdyspaceace.tumblr.com/) (can you see a theme?).
> 
> Number five, I made a spotify account at (drumroll please...) YOU GUESSED IT, [nerdyspaceace](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace)!
> 
> I made a Deceit So Natural playlist on spotify, but I'll talk more about it in the end note. Without further adieu, chapter 9!!

Chapter 9

            The five days following the transmission between the Paladins and Lotor rapidly descended into chaos.

            The first day after was spent getting into contact with the Olkari, the Nivonians, the Tarvinians, and a few more members of the Voltron Alliance who had the military might and the technological advancements for reinforcement and data analysis. Pidge only left her laptop in the moments that Hunk or Shiro pried her away, to coax her into eating and sleeping, while Allura ended up snoring on the bridge, after a day of intensive negotiations and discussions.

            The very next morning, as Allura was updating the star map with locations that Keith couldn’t possibly have been, the map began to light up like a Christmas tree, pinging with alerts from planets all over the nearby galaxies: distress signals. The Galra were attacking, and they were not being merciful.

            Despite being emotionally and physically exhausted, despite being down two of the Lions and two Paladins, the others could not leave these planets defenseless. The team couldn’t save all of them—it was simply _impossible_ —but they could save a few, and salvage what little faith in Voltron the people probably had. Members of the Voltron Alliance promised aid, but the team knew it would be too late by the time reinforcements arrived. The Alliance was tasked with keeping up data analysis and the search for Keith, while for the next four days, Team Voltron went planet-hopping, liberating who they could, destroying Galra ships whenever they had the chance.

            Between missions, between insomnia and the drive to find Keith, and receive a solid update on Lance, the team got whatever sleep they could. An hour here. Another couple hours there. By the end of day five, these habits culminated in disaster.

            “Pull back! Pidge, _pull back!_ PIDGE!”

            _“Shiro, I’ve got nothing but static coming in from her—”_

            Shiro swore under his breath, cutting Hunk off. Black would only move so fast—if anyone could get to Pidge in time, it would have been Keith and Red. But _they didn_ _’t have Keith and Red._ The Black Paladin grit his teeth.

            “Hunk,” he said, voice hard, “we’re gonna have to go in there.”

            _“Way ahead of you.”_

            A whole swarm of Galra fighters surrounded the Green Lion, while the lion kept going, a fast descent straight for the surface of the planet they’d been attempting to free, only to find themselves in yet another trap—the Galra had been lying in wait, Voltron having been turned in.

            “I told her not to go in,” Shiro bit out. “ _Why_ did she _go in?_ ”

            Hunk paused on his end of the comms, and then muttered, _“…You didn’t see the lengths she went to to track down you and Matt. It’s really not something we should discuss over the comms, but…she’s kind of the reason we found you two. We were going after_ her _._ _”_

            “What?” Shiro asked incredulously, very narrowly refraining from jerking Black to a halt altogether.

            _“There’s a lot that we covered up, mostly because you probably would’ve gone into cardiac arrest, or something. We didn’t think…we really didn’t think something like this would happen. Listen, I’ll fill you in on the details when we get back to the castle. Right now, we’ve got a bigger issue.”_

            Shiro whispered another swearword, ashamed and frustrated that he was losing focus on the task at hand. He was the damn _Black Paladin,_ the leader of Team Voltron. His head was supposed to be clear in battle, he was supposed to be aware of every little thing happening, conscientious of his duties, able to read his team as best he could—

            _“That doesn’t sound like focus to me,”_ Black rumbled in Shiro’s head.

            Black didn’t leave it at that, thankfully; she sent waves of determination and the sense of calm that could only ever be associated with battle down the bond between the two of them, while Shiro sharpened his focus, directing his lion to follow after Hunk and Yellow, who were barreling toward Pidge and Green. They crashed right on through the fighter ships, ripping them apart on impact, while Yellow sustained no more than a few scratches.

            Anything that got past Yellow, Black ripped apart as Shiro equipped her jaw-blades.

            _“Shiro, massive problem,”_ Hunk announced suddenly. _“Green just went down—there was a crevice, and Yellow and Black are too big to get in, and it’s…she’s…we_ need _to get down there._ _”_

            “Can you tell if Pidge and Green have control?” Shiro asked.

            _“Judging by the fact that they didn’t slow down once, and that we still can’t reach them through the comms…probably not.”_

            Shiro’s hands curled tighter around the levers in front of him. Matt. Sam. Allura. Keith. Lance.

            He couldn’t lose Pidge, too.

            “We need to find a secure spot to land, and then get after her as fast as we can in our speeders,” Shiro said, “which means we need to take down these fighters.”

            Easier said than done. The fighters continued pouring into their location, from some source Shiro couldn’t pinpoint. Invisible fold in space? Hidden wormhole? A smaller command center their scanners weren’t picking up on?

            _“How are we gonna do that, exactly? There’s like, a million of them.”_

            An idea came to Shiro, that would either work out exceptionally well, or end with the capture of at least two more Paladins. Maybe three. Or maybe the entirety of the remaining members of Team Voltron wouldn’t see this one through.

            “Hunk, I need you on this one alone. How much can Yellow handle?” Shiro asked.

            _“…We can take it. What’ve you got?”_

            Hunk sounded so sure of himself, and so willing to give this plan a chance. Shiro’s chest tightened.

            “You and Yellow are gonna cover Black and I. We’re going to find a place to land, and I’m going after Pidge. Allura, Coran, are either of you listening?” Shiro asked.

            _“Affirmative,”_ Coran answered, at the same time Allura cut in, _“No need. I’m going after Pidge. You_ must _stay in the air and cover me. We cannot afford to let the Galra have even a chance at taking another lion. And before anyone tries to object, I_ _’m already heading down to the shuttles.”_

            _“Wouldn’t think of it,”_ Hunk replied, before Shiro or Coran could have the chance.

            Shiro hesitated, and then answered, “Just stay safe, Princess.”

* * *

            The moment Green’s systems blinked out was the moment Pidge knew she’d fucked up.

            She let out a string of cursewords that would make Matt and Keith proud and probably give Shiro an aneurysm, fumbling uselessly with the levers at her sides, ramming her feet into unresponsive pedals.

            “Come on, girl, I need you!” Pidge called to her lion. “Green! We’re kind of _fucking surrounded!_ ”

            _“I’m trying,”_ Green said, but her voice sounded distant, not loud and clear like it usually was. Whatever hits Green sustained had done their damage—she was falling into a crevice, and taking Pidge down with her.

            _This is my fault,_ Pidge thought, turning her attention away from the controls. _I_ _’ve gotta fix this. Fast._

            Most of the fighters surrounding them were table shots, but the few that weren’t fired off hit after hit. Every time Green took a bad one, Pidge herself grimaced, pain echoing in her own body.

            Pidge slid out of her seat and knelt beside one of Green’s control panels, ripping the cover away and setting to work on the circuitry. Green’s lights had already dimmed, but now the lighting around Pidge dimmed even more so. The Green Paladin raised her head to glance out the windows, only to see jagged rock swallowing her lion whole.

            So. They’d hit the crevice. It wouldn’t be long now before they reached the bottom of this place.

            At their current velocity, and the current rate of acceleration, they would _survive_ a crash, but Green would take on _extensive_ damage that she couldn’t really afford right now. It would definitely put them out of commission for the rest of this battle, and neither Black nor Yellow could get through the crevice like they had to come and rescue them. In short—repairs would have to be administered here, and this whole place was swarming with Galra.

            Pidge yanked on a wire until it snapped.

             Nothing.

            _Fucking shit._

            Pidge got up from where she knelt and made her way through the other parts of Green. There had to be some kind of toolkit in here. She knew that there was a first-aid kit in her lion somewhere, along with rations. They’d been added after the incident with the wormhole, that separated the team and nearly killed Shiro. Adding a toolkit for when their lions went down didn’t seem that far-fetched of an idea.

            Another hit rocked Green. Pidge yelped, pain flaring up in her side.

            _Gotta move, gotta hurry._

            Pidge ran faster, feet sliding underneath her, the gravity stabilizers within her lion not syncing fast enough with how quickly they were barreling down, down, down.

            Green lurched again, body-slamming Pidge into the hatch where the first-aid kit and rations were held. She grunted, shaking off the impact as she drew back and opened the door. She shoved the first-aid kit aside, sifted through packets of rations with names in barely-readable Altean, and turned up…nothing.

            _Fuck._

            That was a suggestion Pidge would have to make, when this whole mess was over—and it _would_ be over. Team Voltron would find a way to end it. If they could find Matt after months of dead ends and moments of hopelessness, if they could find Shiro after his constant disappearances…this would end. It had to.

            Pidge shoved those thoughts aside as she hurried back to the cockpit, Green sending waves of warning down their bond.

            “I know, girl, I know,” Pidge muttered, sliding across the floor on her knees, stopping before the control panel. The cover still hung open, the pulled wire still dangling limply.

            “All right, Green,” Pidge said, “I’m gonna try and jump start this. You gotta work with me.”

            They were running out of time—Green’s warnings were more and more frequent, and even Pidge’s busted scanners were whirring and beeping. She tried to tune it all out and leveled her wrist at the control panel. She’d been upgrading her suit constantly, to aid in her hacking skills; sometimes, a shock was all you needed to scramble Galra systems.

            Hopefully, she could jump-start Green this way.

            “C’mon girl, ready?” Pidge whispered, and with a flick of her wrist, Pidge administered a bolt of electricity to the panel. Green jolted and rumbled. Pidge bit her lip, narrowed her eyes, and shocked her lion again.

            At once, Green’s cockpit filled with the scream of alarms, lighting plunging the place into deep red.

            “Yes!” Pidge cheered, throwing herself back into her seat.

            Her smile vanished as soon as she got a visual on their proximity to the ground, and their estimated time of impact. “FUCK—SHIT—”

            Pidge yanked both levers at her side backwards and slammed a foot on the brake pedal. “GREEN, PULL UP! COME ON!”

            _“PIDGE, what’s happening?!”_ Shiro shouted over the comms—Pidge could finally hear them, now that they were back online.

            Pidge ignored him in favor of focusing, as Green’s jet boosters turned on just two seconds too late. The impact of the crash was lessened significantly, but still not enough. Pidge slammed forward, helmet protecting her as her head banged against the front window—not hard enough to shatter neither the window nor her helmet, but enough to daze Pidge. She bounced back and hit the floor, rather than her chair, and Green shuddered once and shut down.

            The comms, at the very least, stayed online this time.

            _“PIDGE!”_ Shiro was still shouting over the comms, while Hunk and Allura talked to each other in the background—Allura was weaving in and out of fighter ships in a shuttle, and Hunk and Shiro were trying to give her as much cover as they could.

            “I’m okay,” Pidge said, bracing an arm on her chair as she pulled herself up to her feet. “It’s not as bad as it could have been. But Green’s not getting up any time soon.”

            _“Why did you go in, Pidge?”_ Shiro asked, grunting as he presumably dodged a blast from one of the fighters.

            Pidge shrugged—not like Shiro could see it.

            “This planet’s in league with the Galra. They have to have information on Lance or Keith, and I’m not leaving until I get it. I mean, I’m not leaving without _Green,_ but I’m also not leaving without this information.”

            Shiro fumbled for words, before finally heaving a sigh. _“I’d lecture you, but we don’t have time right now. Allura’s coming down. Please, if you’re gonna look for information…at least don’t go alone.”_

            Pidge hesitated, then, “All right.”

            It didn’t take long for Allura to reach Pidge. By the time Pidge had wrenched open an escape hatch and gotten out of her lion, Allura was parking the shuttle in a small cave— _ah, cave network, this_ _’ll be fun_ —and then sprinting for Pidge.

            “Pidge!” she called. “Are you okay?”

            _Shiro and Allura are going to be the death of me,_ Pidge thought, hopping down Green’s head, all the way to the ground, using her jetpack to pad her landing.

            “I’m fine,” Pidge said, as Allura stopped in front of her.

            She noted that Allura, decked out in her Pink Paladin armor, didn’t have a bayard on her—Shiro had the black one, Hunk and Pidge had the yellow and green ones, and the Empire was currently in possession of the red and blue ones. In lieu of a bayard, Allura was clutching a staff, not unlike the ones the training drones often used, though this one _was_ a bit more ornate.

            “What you did was reckless,” Allura said. She glanced over her shoulders, and then added, as though Shiro couldn’t hear anything over the comms, “but I cannot fault you for it. I likely would have done the same.”

            If Shiro caught her words, between the battle before him and Hunk shouting for Shiro to look out, for Shiro to cover his three, he didn’t say anything in response.

            Pidge smiled at Allura. “At least _someone_ _’s_ on my side. Come on.”

            Pidge broke out into a sprint for the cave network, while Green put up a weak particle barrier, flickering in and out, as her Paladin got away. Allura followed Pidge, prepared to cover her in case the fighters locked onto them. Neither of them allowed their guards to drop until they were around a bend. Between their hidden location, and the size of the caves, the fighters couldn’t follow them here. The new threat became sentries, soldiers, and civilians.

            “Night vision going on,” Pidge said, and Allura muttered a confirmation to her.

            Pidge’s vision went green-and-black as the night vision scanners in her visor turned on. Pidge overlaid a second mode, thermal mode. Between the night vision and thermal camera, she should’ve had no problem picking up on computers and enemies. Once she found a computer, she would wring every last drop of information out of it that she could. Of course, she’d probably need something compatible with GalraTech—probably the arm of a sentry.

            “Ready?” Pidge whispered.

            She could practically feel Allura smiling mischievously behind her. “Let’s go.”

            Pidge and Allura started moving through the cave network, sticking to walls, crouching behind stalagmites. They never once ran into a sentry or soldier or civilian—this entire place seemed to be abandoned.

            _“Pidge, Allura, how are you guys holding up?”_ Hunk asked, after a long stretch of no communication between the Paladins.

            “This place is practically abandoned,” Pidge answered.

            The call to adventure and the thrill of danger, fueled by her adrenaline, was finally ebbing.

            “No computers. No signs of life. But this network of caves is too…intricate? I guess? It can’t just have come into existence the way it is now. You’d think people would’ve made use of this place,” Pidge said.

            She looked to Allura. “Sorry for dragging you down here. We should probably start heading back.”

            Allura smiled thinly at her. “No need for apologies. I suppose part of this is my fault, for suggesting this be the distress signal we answered.”

            Allura patted Pidge’s shoulder as they started out of the cave network. Just a few feet into their exit, the ground shook beneath their feet, so violently that both girls toppled over, crashing into each other and going down in a tangle of limbs. Pidge let out a few swearwords, and Allura did the same—at least, Pidge thought so. If she understood the intention of the stream of Altean coming out of Allura’s mouth.

            _“What’s going on?”_ Shiro asked, over the comms.

            “The ground started shaking, really badly—”

            Pidge cut herself off as the ground shook again, even more violently, dislodging some stray rocks above Pidge and Allura’s heads.

            _“Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no,”_ Hunk said.

            “Out with it, Hunk,” Pidge said. “What is it?”

            _“Not to alarm anyone, but I just saw this huge explosion, and—”_

            Pidge and Allura’s comms went to static as they heard yet another explosion, the ground shaking once more.

            Realization dawned on both girls’ faces.

            “This place is a ticking timebomb,” Allura said urgently, as she grabbed Pidge’s wrist, yanked her up off the ground, and broke out into a sprint. Pidge, on shorter legs, stumbled in an attempt to fall into step with the Altean. “We must restore the Green Lion and _get out of here_.”

            When the ground shook again, Allura and Pidge activated their jetpacks and rocketed through the rest of the cave system, until they came back out to where they’d left Green and Allura’s shuttle.

            Green dropped her weakened particle barrier as Pidge and Allura approached, and did her best to put it back up once they were inside its ring. A few fighter ships made passes at the barrier—some firing lasers, some colliding head-on in an effort to shatter it. Each time it took a hit, it blinked in and out, growing dimmer.

            “Pidge, I need you to concentrate on connecting with Green,” Allura said. “It’ll be the quickest way for me to heal your link and heal your lion.”

            They had to work quickly—enormous pieces of rock from the crevice were breaking and falling down around them. Some of these rocks were helpful, a few smashing into fighter ships and taking them down, but others…not so much. One came dangerously close to Green, bouncing off of her particle barrier, sending another shudder through it.

            “Gotcha,” Pidge said, and shut her eyes and placed a hand on Green’s jaw. Allura came up next to her and did the same, channeling her quintessence, while Pidge pictured herself becoming one with her lion.

            Green responded faintly to Pidge, a tickling sensation at the back of her mind. Pidge reached for those little threads and grabbed on, grip tight, a refusal to let go. She did her best to focus, even between the falling rocks, and the trembling ground, and the sounds of battle around her.

            “I’m here, girl. I _need_ you. I’m sorry I got us into this,” she said, trying to ground herself.

            _It_ _’s not your fault,_ Green’s voice echoed in Pidge’s mind. _I, too, was interested in helping you._

            Pidge almost laughed—inquisitive Paladin, just as inquisitive Lion. But the tentative smile dropped from her face when she opened her eyes.

            The particle barrier winked out, despite Allura’s efforts, just as one of the fighters opened fire.

            “Allura, MOVE!” Pidge shouted, letting go of Green, mental connection barely holding on. She lunged for the Altean princess and shoved her to the ground, laser fire missing Allura completely, a few bolts striking Pidge in the legs as she went down.

            The scream tore raw from Pidge’s throat, so loudly that she got feedback in her comms.

            “PIDGE!” Allura and Hunk were both shouting, but it was Shiro who tore Pidge’s heart in half with his guttural, _“KATIE!”_

She hadn’t been called that name in a long time. Not since Shiro revealed to her that he knew her true identity as Katie Holt, rather than Pidge Gunderson. And before that, it was before the Garrison. Her mother, seeing her off for what neither of them knew would be the last time for a long time.

            “I’m okay, I’m okay,” Pidge hissed, even though she was very much _not._ Her legs felt as though they were on fire, and they refused to listen to her. There was no way she’d be able to set her weight back on them, or get back into her lion, or run or be of _any_ use. Allura seemed to know this, and scooped Pidge into her arms, mindful of her injuries.

            Behind them, Green shuddered, particle barrier coming back up, stronger than it had been before. Then, Green got to her haunches and let out a vicious roar at the approaching enemy ships.

            _“They will not take you from me, little one.”_

            “Green,” Pidge breathed, vision swimming.

            “Shiro, she’s losing consciousness,” Allura said, voice sounding faraway.

            Pidge tried to focus on the Pink Paladin’s face, tried to focus on Green in the back of her mind, trying and failing to keep her awake. But the darkness was easier. The darkness was more comfortable.

            “Sorry,” she muttered, and that was the last thing she muttered, before she slipped under.

* * *

            “She’s completely out of it, Shiro, screaming won’t help,” Allura said through grit teeth, carrying Pidge through Green’s now-lowered jaw.

            Shiro made some sort of noise on his end of the comms, before deciding that silence was probably his best option, save for the occasional grunts he made as he maneuvered Black through the swarm of fighters trying to bear down on the crevice, now that they knew the Green Lion was stuck down there.

            _“Is Green responding now?”_ Hunk asked.

            “Yes,” Allura replied. “I’m getting into the cockpit.”

            As she was linked to all of the lions through their quintessence, Allura could feel Green in her mind. With Pidge out of commission and in harm’s way, Green responded to Allura as she entered the cockpit and sat down in what was normally Pidge’s pilot seat. The dashboard glowed to life in front of her, as she balanced Pidge carefully in her lap. The backs of Pidge’s legs were badly burned, and the nerve damage would become permanent if they didn’t get back to the castle soon.

            _Very_ soon.

            “I know I’m not your Paladin,” Allura said, laying her hands on the levers at her sides, “so please…if you could assist me. I’m not used to your controls.”

            Green purred a confirmation that yes, of _course_ she would, Pidge’s life was at stake and so was Allura’s. She roared again, and the particle barrier broke, and they were off, shooting through a gap between fighters. Green guided Allura’s actions, pointing out her laser cannon, her vine cannon, the cloaking device Pidge had installed.

            Allura went for the cloaking device first, Green disappearing from the fighters’ sights. By now, most of them were probably locked onto their energy signature, but at least now, they couldn’t _see_ Green.

            _“Does anyone know how long we’ve got until this whole planet blows to bits?”_ Hunk asked over the comms. _“I’m seeing a_ lot _more explosions! Allura—_ _”_

            “We’re almost there!” Allura shouted, blasting a fighter in front of her to smithereens.

            Green swerved out of the way of the falling pieces of the fighter, of rocks falling down the sides of the crevice. An explosion rocked the whole area, much closer than it should have been.

            _“We’ve barely got any time to get out of here,”_ Shiro’s harried voice came over the comms. _“If we don’t get back to the castle and away from this planet in the next thirty ticks or so, we’re all toast.”_

            Thirty ticks to get Green out of here. Thirty ticks to get Pidge to safety. Allura gave a tight nod that Shiro couldn’t see and narrowed her eyes.

            “Come on, Green,” she whispered.

            Another violent explosion went off behind her, blowing up two fighters that had been tailing her. It gave her enough cover to fire at the other fighters in front of her, and then swing a shot at a fighter advancing on her three. Unfortunately, she didn’t have time to swivel around and hit a fighter coming up on her nine—Green took a blow to the side that set her off-course.

            _“Twenty ticks!”_ Hunk called, voice strained.

            The castle was pulling into view, Coran seeming to either have listened to the comms, or having understood the situation. Hunk was already advancing to the castle, blasting apart a few of the fighters that tried to tail him, fighters that tried to make a break for the castle, ones Coran couldn’t eliminate while he engaged others.

            Allura and Green dodged out of the way of fighters directly in front of them, and then jerked hard right as they shot out of the crevice and back into open air. Now, they could see what Hunk had been talking about when he was talking about the explosions—whole chains of them erupted across the planet, orange-and-red balls of fire taking up most of the view.

            _“Fifteen!”_ Hunk shouted.

            Green took another hit, briefly shimmering into existence before disappearing again. The hit jolted the cockpit, jostling Pidge. Her legs brushed against the side of the chair, where Allura had positioned them to dangle over. Pidge made no noise, completely unconscious and unaware of the present situation. If Allura wasn’t connected to Green, wasn’t hyperaware of everything happening, she might’ve mistaken Pidge for being dead.

            The lasers had hit her legs, but they were taking a toll on the smallest Paladin.

            _“Come on, guys, ten ticks!”_ Shiro shouted in the comms. A shadow fell over Green, and before Allura knew what was happening, she lost control. When she peered out the window, she saw that Black had snatched up Green in her massive jaw, and was getting them back to the castle as fast as possible.

            Allura narrowed her eyes and slammed the foot on the accelerator pedal. The levers at her side were both already shoved forward—there was nothing more they could do but hope for the best.

            _“Black, help me out here,_ please _, I can_ _’t lose more Paladins,”_ Allura heard Shiro muttering over the comms. He probably wasn’t even aware.

            _Help him, Black,_ Allura thought, reaching for her connection to the Black Lion. _He_ _’s been through so much. Do not just help him_ now _—please, help him beyond this, too._

* * *

            Shiro couldn’t breathe easy until Pidge was in a pod, and even then, he still found himself struggling. He paced back and forth in the pod room, Allura and Hunk watching him, neither one of them willing to say anything.

            Another battle gone awry.

            Another Paladin hurt.

            He was the _team leader,_ and he couldn’t keep the most vulnerable member of his team safe. What kind of leader did that make him? He was already missing two Paladins as it was.

            _I_ _’m sorry,_ Shiro thought. _I_ _’m sorry, Keith. Lance. Allura. Matt. Sam._

            His gaze fell back on Pidge’s pod. Her small form seemed so out of place behind the seafoam glass. He was used to seeing her up until all hours with bloodshot eyes. Used to seeing her running around a house, screaming bloody murder at Matt. Used to seeing her _always doing something._ Pidge, unless she was intensely focused, was never still, and even then, one could practically see her brain working overtime.

            Stillness did not fit Pidge.

            _I_ _’m sorry, Pidge._

            Hunk’s words from battle came back to him—that Shiro had not seen what Pidge had done to find him and Matt. Now that Pidge was in a pod, now was as good a time as ever to ask.

            “Hunk.” Shiro finally stopped pacing, and dragged a hand through his white forelock.

            “Yeah?” Hunk asked tentatively, almost as though he were afraid of setting Shiro off.

            “In the battle. What you said about Pidge. How did you guys end up finding Matt and me?”

            Shiro faced Hunk head-on, locking eyes. He crossed his arms, but he drummed his fingers on his bicep, waiting for Hunk’s response. Hunk, meanwhile, cut a glance at Allura, who grimaced and turned away, pretending to busy herself with the datapad showing Pidge’s vitals.

            “Okay,” Hunk said, raising his hands defensively, “so you have to understand that things were kind of messy while you were gone. Not like they are now. Well, okay, maybe a bit at the beginning, but we fell into a groove. But we were always a little unstable. Keith was doing his best to fill your shoes, but we all know that’s kind of impossible. Lance was trying to help him, and while Lance being there _did_ save our butts on many more than one occasion, it didn’t always. Allura tried to take command, and there were fights, and I was just trying to de-stress, y’know? Which meant spending a lot of time isolated in the kitchen. Pidge and Coran, meanwhile, got the chance to look for you and Matt. Day and night, on the computer, on the bridge, with the star map, always searching.”

            Shiro nodded, gave a faint _mmhmm,_ motioned for Hunk to continue.

            “You have to understand that Keith didn’t want to take over as the head, and only fought Allura for it because he knew you wanted it for him. He was trying to do the best for you, but he would much rather have been searching. He knew where Pidge was coming from with Matt. He understood. Pidge, though, did not understand that he understood. Seeing as Keith was filling your shoes, and we had a role as the defenders of the universe, she didn’t even want to _ask_ him if she could find Matt when she got what she thought would be the lead to bring him home. Keith was already dealing with enough. She thought she’d be back quickly, and up and left with Green in the middle of the night. If Lance hadn’t been on the bridge that night, looking at the stars, we wouldn’t have known until the morning that she got away,” Hunk continued.

            “She went off by herself?” Shiro asked, eyebrows shooting up.

            “Are you really surprised though?” Hunk responded, gesturing to Pidge’s pod. “You know she has a tendency to do that.”

            “I would have pegged Keith to be the one to do that,” Shiro said, and his voice grew softer as he added, “but I guess I overlooked Pidge.”

            “Yeah, well, she ran off,” Hunk said. “Lance went and got the rest of us up, and instead of going after her to like, reign her in, Keith said we were going after her to help her. And then we found the base, and stopped her from getting blown up or captured, and…well, you know the rest. We found you and Matt, liberated a bunch of other prisoners, and then got out of there before something else could go wrong.”

            Shiro pinched the bridge of his nose.

            Pidge ran off. That was already a little unsettling, that there was a pattern he’d been overlooking.

            Lance was spending nights on the bridge back then, stargazing. Now Shiro wondered if he’d been doing that after he came back, before things happened with Keith.

            And then Keith. Going along with Pidge’s reckless idea. _That_ wasn’t completely out of the ordinary, at least.

            “That explains why you and Allura didn’t exactly try to stop her from getting to that planet,” Shiro said.

            Hunk shrugged. “A good ninety percent of the time, Pidge’s hunches and impulse-decisions are right. If we had stopped her, you might not be here right now.”

            Shiro held back the remark that immediately jumped to his tongue, that _well, if we_ _’d stopped Pidge this time, she wouldn’t be in a healing pod, and we all wouldn’t have just had a near-death experience._

            Everyone made mistakes. This was just one of them. A near-fatal one. But one of them.

            _“She’s a Paladin,”_ Black said softly. _“Just like you. Just like the others. Younger, yes, but no less wise or intelligent.”_

            _I know,_ Shiro thought.

            “So, now that that’s out of the way,” Allura said, “there’s nothing we can do while Pidge is in the pod. If we asked, Green might let me fly her for other missions until Pidge is done healing, but…seeing as Pidge is the true Green Paladin, and the consequences of this battle were…certainly not favorable…I suggest that we refrain from answering any more distress signals. At least for the time being.”

            “I agree,” Hunk said immediately. “That. That’s a good idea. I’m going off to make celebration cookies, because _this is the greatest idea we_ _’ve had all day._ ”

            Hunk left the med bay before Shiro could protest, leaving him alone with Allura.

            “Are you sure?” Shiro asked. “Our reputation—”

            “I know,” Allura interrupted. “But we’ve seen, now, what happens when we walk into a trap without two of our Paladins and Lions. And I’m sure Pidge would agree with me. She and Hunk were right, Shiro—we cannot liberate planets if we can hardly defend ourselves.”

            Allura walked up to Shiro and stopped in front of him. He uncrossed his arms and dropped them to his sides, and Allura slid her hands into his. Shiro leaned his head down, to press his forehead against Allura’s.

            “You’re trying,” Allura whispered. “That’s all we can ask of you. I know it’s difficult.”

            _Difficult. Understatement of the year._

            Shiro kept that opinion to himself.

            “You are too,” he responded instead. “You’re doing more than I am. And you’re doing as wonderful a job as you can.”

            Allura’s lips twitched, into something not quite a smile, but definitely not a frown.

            “We’ll find them, Shiro,” she said.

            She tilted her head up, to meet Shiro’s eyes. He held her gaze, even when he let go of one of her hands, bringing his hand up to brush her cheek, to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

            “I hope,” he whispered, and leaned down and kissed her softly. The kiss lasted no more than a few seconds, as gentle as it possibly could be.

            “No hoping,” Allura said, when they broke apart. “I’m _certain_ , Shiro.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so I'm hoping to do updates about once a week, now that school is starting. (Also, I didn't have to write my AP Lit essay last week, so I have until tomorrow to read my books now!! Woohoo!!)
> 
> So, the Deceit So Natural playlist! It's got over 100 songs, so the main playlist has _all_ of the songs on it, but then there are 7 sub-playlists that I created in case you want to get into the headspace of one character, or in the mood of one relationship.  
> [Deceit So Natural](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/1wdQpSNWYnHNbUnIG3IBad)  
> [DSN: The Team](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/2VMY3duQL2AFnuZG8O5bRg)  
> [DSN: The Liar](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/3UoOSCteOzUtYJMJcG2IOH)  
> [DSN: The Pawn](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/1g7DzQNV5U9yzvlRGvajzH)  
> [DSN: The Prince](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/4S2Eytf2di7rgMr4mNImNI)  
> [DSN: The Liar & the Pawn](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/2Yj5WuKJaxcnfjZPRQK8WG)  
> [DSN: The Prince & the Liar](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/3d3A0wQyq1e4emXIqygrGE)  
> [DSN: The Prince, the Liar, & the Pawn](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/3d3A0wQyq1e4emXIqygrGE)
> 
> There are two other playlists on my account that I won't link here. One is Starset Acoustics, which is all four acoustic Starset songs in one place, for when I really wanna put myself in my feelings. The other is called Just Another Story, which is a personal playlist, about myself, so if you wanna get into my headspace...there's that.
> 
> Um, just some quick other life updates, seeing as you guys actually care (wow??? I love you guys). I already said school started, so, y'know, I'll try to update once a week or so. It really depends on the chapter and how far ahead I've planned. Uhhh, let's see, um, oh yeah, I had a really shitty day? I...had to confront a friend. Like, someone I would've called my best friend. About some mounting issues. It didn't go down very well. I had a mental breakdown during the confrontation (it was over text). I'm okay now, I've got two other super close friends who've been supporting me through it, and who helped calm me down. 
> 
> Ahhh, the Instagram and Twitter pages I mentioned earlier? They were made to ward off another mental breakdown a couple days ago. Making playlists on spotify and dicking around on iPiccy to make the playlist art has also been cathartic. If you go on that Instagram page and see other edits, that was also me doing cathartic things. That Instagram started as a rant page, actually. The rant posts are archived. But anyway.
> 
> So, like I said, writing this thing is pretty helpful, so don't worry about it. I mean, unless the chapters start to seriously drop in quality, maybe then worry?? Anyway, at the moment, I'm okay. 
> 
> Also, since I'm okay and made everyone read about my life problems, I'll tell you something about chapter 10: Keith is back and he's not having fun. Not in the slightest. Also, we'll probably see Lance again. 
> 
> Okay, have a lovely day/night/whatever it is at the current time you're reading this.


	10. The One in Which Keith is Trapped

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The scientists aren't done with Keith, no matter how done he is with them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spotify playlists for this series: [Deceit So Natural](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/1wdQpSNWYnHNbUnIG3IBad) // [The Pawn](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/1g7DzQNV5U9yzvlRGvajzH) // [The Liar](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/3UoOSCteOzUtYJMJcG2IOH) // [The Prince](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/4S2Eytf2di7rgMr4mNImNI) // [The Prince & the Liar](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/3d3A0wQyq1e4emXIqygrGE) // [The Liar & the Pawn](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/2Yj5WuKJaxcnfjZPRQK8WG) // [The Prince, the Liar, & the Pawn](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/2NALRBQbgOLhdQmm8UNZXh) // [The Team](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/2VMY3duQL2AFnuZG8O5bRg)
> 
> (Side note: Lance's playlist has the most followers. Lance's playlist also shares the most songs with my personal playlist. Make of that what you will.)
> 
> Hey so you wanna know who BSed her way through an entire essay today with nothing but knowledge from SparkNotes, Shmoop, CliffsNotes, a few chapters from a book with an annoying author, and just 61 pages of actual reading from Brave New World? THIS GIIIIRL!
> 
> AKA: I stayed up till 2:15 AM with the intent to read but instead I wrote this chapter. For everyone wishing to see Keith not suffer...WHOOPS. (Funnily enough, chapter 10 in Dynasty Decapitated is where Keith killed those three soldiers on Eddul. Talk about trauma.)
> 
> Trigger warnings for **swearing** , **violence** , **blood** , **needles** , **nausea** , **electric shocking** , and a little bit of **body horror** (nothing too graphic, I promise). If anyone needs to skip the chapter, I'll put a summary in the bottom author's note.
> 
> Here ya go!

Chapter 10

            Keith woke up screaming this time. The creeps around him chuckled to themselves, all of them turning their attention away from one of the monitors at Keith’s side and toward the Red Paladin himself.

            _Fuck._ Keith leaned his head back and shut his eyes. It must’ve been a nightmare. Had to have been a nightmare. Which meant he’d been unconscious for yet another indeterminate stretch of time, while the people around him continued to work—whatever that entailed. He was no closer to getting out of here than he had been before.

            “Are you prepared for further questioning, Keith?” the ringleader asked.

            Keith’s hands curled into fists. It was bad enough he was restrained, and being electrocuted, and being injected with foreign substances, all so these people could…what? Get information out of him? Get information _about_ him? Both?

            In any case, being called by his real name unsettled him. He would’ve much preferred these people used something more detached. Red Paladin. Prisoner. Subject. Boy. Literally anything other than _Keith._ All it did was remind him that these people could now, if they found the right connections, trace him back to Earth. And while it wasn’t his own life he was worried about—he didn’t exactly _have_ anything on Earth, except the shack and his speeder, but those were replaceable—these people could trace back the _other_ Paladins. They could find their families and wreak havoc, if they so desired.

            Knowing Lotor was involved made everything ten times worse.

            “Not really,” Keith answered, eyes still shut, “but I have a feeling you’re going to ask me questions anyway.”

            The ringleader, Ursho, made a noise of disapproval, and seconds later, Keith yelped, a bolt of electricity running through him. His eyes flew open and narrowed, locking onto Ursho.  Ursho’s expression was mostly hidden by the white mask on his face—Keith could hardly see his eyes, and his mouth was gone. But he had a sinking feeling Ursho was smiling.

            Keith fought against the urge to snap at him.

            “I hope your dreams were pleasant,” Ursho said. “Tell me, who was that in the dream with you?”

            Adrenaline flooded Keith’s veins. That was why everyone had been crowded around the monitor at his side. Why they’d been laughing. He didn’t know whether or not they had access to the sounds from his brain, but they’d apparently had a video feed, probably being transmitted by the nodes on his head. So what else did they have access to? What else were they going to use against him?

            _What else are they going to report back to Lotor?_

            “A friend from home,” Keith lied. Okay, so it wasn’t a complete lie—Lance was from the same planet. From the Garrison. But they definitely hadn’t been friends.

            Ursho leaned closer to Keith, and Keith imagined himself breaking through his restraints and punching Ursho in the face.

            “And did this friend happen to come into space with you? And maybe become the Blue Paladin of Voltron while he was at it?” Ursho pressed.

            _Fuck you, fuck this situation, I won_ _’t turn him over._

            “No,” Keith replied, fighting to keep an even voice.. “I dreamed that part. I _wish_ he did.”

            “Really?” Ursho said.

            _Nope. Don_ _’t even go there. Keep your mouth shut._

            “That’s surprising,” Ursho went on, “considering, in our files here, we have a boy named Lance McClain down as the Blue Paladin of Voltron, and in your dream, both you _and_ the emperor called the other boy, who looked _very much_ like the Blue Paladin to me, by the name _Lance._ ”

            “What does it matter to you?” Keith asked, though he already knew.

            The easiest way to break a person down was to hit their weakest spot. And while they scrambled to recover, scrambled to protect that weak link, other vulnerabilities became clearer, and soon there were too many to protect. The person would be overwhelmed, struggling to figure out which spots to protect next, and which others to leave open, and while they became lost in those thoughts, you could land a killing blow.

            “So, you continue to resist, even when _you_ know _we_ know you’re lying to us,” Ursho mused, dragging Keith out of his thoughts. “Wisbie, turn up the voltage. Just a little. And please, _do_ administer a test shock.”

            Keith grit his teeth and set his jaw. When the electricity came on this time, he killed his screams in his throat.

            “Interesting,” Ursho remarked. “So, now, about Lance—”

            “I won’t say a word,” Keith interrupted.

            Ursho paused. He appeared to have been studying Keith, but then again, that whole _masked creeper_ look was making it difficult to tell.

            “Okay, so you _do_ care about him, to some degree. That much I can gather, between your vehement refusal to give us information about him, and your pained words to him in your dream,” Ursho said. “And the Emperor said you were jealous? Do you love this Lance, perhaps?”

            _Are you fucking kidding me with this shit, why does half the galaxy care about my damn love life, you people are taking over planets left and right and you still need to stop and take the time to ask me whether or not I wanna kiss my sharpshooter?_

            Anything Keith wanted to say would give him away.

            Hell, he was already given away.

            “And why does this matter?” Keith asked. “What’s the entire fucking p—”

            He really should’ve expected the shock by now.

            This one left him breathless, heaving, struggling to get air back into his lungs. He needed out of here. These people were doing nothing more than toying with him, waiting for him to break. This was what they _wanted._ A rise out of him. Another excuse to shock him, shock him senseless, shock him until he stopped fighting back. Shock him until he became docile and afraid, so afraid that he wouldn’t dare step a toe out of line.

            _They won_ _’t kill me until they have what they need._ Keith remembered another one of these masked creeps, the one Ursho called _Cha_ _’asti,_ saying as much. Lotor needed data, and if he had Lance in his possession, then it wasn’t such a reach to believe he would use information about Lance to break _him._

            For all his talk about killing Keith, Lotor sure gave a lot of excuses to keep him alive.

            “The point is not important,” Ursho said casually, as though his people hadn’t just electrocuted Keith for the millionth time. “We’re doing our jobs, just as you have your own to do. …Well, had. You likely already know that we have orders to not let you out of here alive.”

            “Not until we have our data, Ursho,” Cha’asti reminded him now. “Or the other thing.”

            _Other thing._

            Keith tried not to perk up when he heard that. _Other thing_ probably meant something horrific, but it was an alternative to death. He masked his curiosity with anger, staring at Ursho as though he’d been _so_ caught up in doing so that he hadn’t heard a word uttered by Cha’asti.

            “Cha’asti, _hush_ ,” Ursho said, and turned back to Keith. “Now, Keith, I’d like you to picture Lance.”

            _How about I don_ _’t?_ Keith held back his reply, willing himself _not_ to think of Lance. Not his face, or sparkling eyes, or soft hands and gentle touch and _dammit Keith, this is exactly what you_ _’re_ not _supposed to be doing._

            There had to be a reason for him to be picturing Lance.

            _Don_ _’t picture him. Don’t picture the team. Don’t even picture a person. Or better yet, picture someone you hate._

            Iverson immediately came to Keith’s mind. Specifically, his shitty attitude and face that constantly looked like he’d just eaten a lemon. And how he’d had two working eyes, until he blamed Shiro for the Kerberos mission’s failure, and Keith decked him so hard that one eye lost its vision completely.

            “That doesn’t appear to be the Blue Paladin,” Ursho remarked.

            _Fucking head nodes,_ Keith thought.

            “No, it’s not. It’s a jackass, just like you,” he said out loud, before he could stop himself.

            “Hold off, Wisbie,” Ursho said, putting a hand up, hardly glancing at the person in charge of frying Keith. “Nissi, get concoction GH49.”

            Keith glanced to his left as someone—the only Tarvinian scientist here—brought over a vial containing a glowing yellow liquid.

            His heart nearly stopped altogether.

            Was that _quintessence?_ It couldn’t have been. Maybe it had a few drops in it? But _pure quintessence,_ that would have been a stretch, wouldn’t it have been?

            “Emperor Lotor informed us you have traces of Galran blood in your system,” Ursho explained, taking the vial and attaching it to a needle. “Our tests turned up less than fifty percent, but of course, sometimes…traits can still manifest with the right stimulus. Sometimes not.”

            _No. Oh fuck no._

            “Seeing as you won’t take my questions without putting up a fight, I may as well find some way to be productive. Can a few people please come and hold him down?” Ursho said.

            Keith’s eyes widened as people from around the room, including Nissi and Wisbie, came from different parts of the room to hold his head down, to press down on his arms.

            “Let go of me!” Keith shouted. “I’ll answer the questions! Just—get that— _stop!_ ”

            “You’ve already lost that chance,” Ursho said. “Afterward, you have another chance.”

            _Breathe, Keith. Come on._ But he couldn’t. What if traits manifested? What would the others say if they found him and his skin was purple, or his eyes were yellow? Allura could flip out. Shiro could shut down or go into an episode. And what about Lance? How would he be able to look at Keith when he looked just like…

            _Breathe._

_BREATHE._

Keith wanted to remind himself of the logic of the situation, that his Galran blood percentage was less than half, traits _shouldn_ _’t_ manifest, but then again, he was in a corner of the universe with people he hadn’t known existed just a _year ago,_ with technological advancements ten thousand years ahead of Earth, and weird space magic, and—

            The needle pinched Keith’s neck, sending a wave of nausea rolling over him. A few of his muscles spasmed, and for a few seconds his fingertips burned and ached, as though something were trying to push out from under the skin, before the sensation subsided.

            Ursho made a disappointed noise behind his mask.

            “Nissi, was that the maximum dosage?” he asked.

            Nissi nodded. “Affirmative. Anything higher had potential to be lethal.”

            Ursho groaned, while Cha’asti scoffed.

            “I told you all we should’ve asked the emperor to send in a druid. He would have manifested traits no problem.”

            “Maybe not,” one of the still-unnamed scientists chimed in. “His head druid was confirmed dead in a report two quintants ago. None of the others could match her power.”

            “Well, now someone’ll have to,” Cha’asti snapped, turning away to get back to her work, while another scientist, somewhere else in the room, said, “They finally got the old witch?”

            Keith tuned out the sea of voices gossiping about the fact that Haggar was now dead—he didn’t need the details, all he knew was that she was officially gone.

            Relief overwhelmed him. With the others’ backs turned, with the others too preoccupied to pay Keith mind, he relaxed against the slab and shut his eyes, evening out his breaths as he came to terms with everything. Haggar was dead. Galra traits had not manifested in him, even though for a few seconds, he felt as though he’d come extremely close. He opened his eyes again and tried to crane his head, to inspect his fingers.

            It had almost felt as though claws had been pushing up, trying to break through the skin, but the dosage he’d been given wouldn’t allow it. And yet…he’d nearly been there. If the dosage had been any higher, would it have just been the claws? Would his skin have started turning purple? Ursho had sounded immensely disappointed, no one had gasped. Keith assumed purple skin _hadn_ _’t_ shown up, and from what he could see, this assumption was _correct_ …

            “Enough,” Ursho said to the other scientists. “There’s still one more thing we can do to get information out of him. Cha’asti, the serum.”

            _Serum?_

            That snapped Keith back to attention.

            From science fiction, and even science reality, based on things he’d seen—and would not admit to _swiping,_ on the rare occasion—from the science labs on the Garrison property, Keith knew some serums could really screw with your head. Truth serums were being developed, last he’d heard. Hallucinogens? Garrison kids would get their hands on those for _fun,_ and after Eddul, Keith wanted nothing to do with them.

            Out here, the Bovona System may have been underdeveloped, compared to places like Altea or Eddul or Nivon, but compared to _Earth,_ they were still _way_ ahead of the game.

            Once more, Keith was ordered held down. Once more, he struggled against the scientists, struggled against his restraints, called out for them to _stop it, what happened to interrogation, I thought I had another shot, fuck all of you, I hate you,_ stop _, don_ _’t you dare—_

            And his shouts gave way to unintelligible groans, and then to nothing, as consciousness faded away.

* * *

            The next time Keith woke up, he jerked up so quickly that he toppled off of the slab he’d been lying on, no restraints to hold him back this time. He barely caught himself, nose brushing the metal of the floor, and his only thought was, _well, that could_ _’ve been worse._

            Then, the more important thought: _holy fuck, I_ _’m free._

            Keith reached up for the slab to brace himself as he staggered to his feet, legs a little weak after… _how much time has gone by? How long have I been in this lab?_ He hadn’t glimpsed a calendar on the day he’d fallen asleep in the room in Luce’s house, and he hadn’t seen one since.

            No grasp on how much time had passed.

            _Figure it out later. Get out first. Run._

            Keith couldn’t exactly _run,_ but he moved as quickly as he could, hand always on a table or chair or wall, whatever he could find to keep himself firmly on two feet. He couldn’t hear anyone in the hallway, but he wasn’t taking any chances. A tray left near the door held a few syringes, and Keith took one. It probably wouldn’t do him very much good—he could only use it once, maybe twice if he rationed the liquid inside, and he could only use it in close range—but he clutched it regardless.

            Keith peered around the wall of the open door into the empty hall. He stepped out on quiet feet, and slowly inched his way right, toward a bend that would hopefully lead him out of here. He gradually picked up speed, once he realized that no one was coming—he could not detect even the faintest of echoes from the other halls; no voices, no pounding feet.

            By the time Keith reached the end of the hall, rounded the bend, and got through most of that hallway—coming up on a right turn—shouting erupted from behind one of the doors he’d just passed.

            Keith almost tripped over his feet.

            _Lance._ That was the first voice he recognized, but it wasn’t the only one. Several voices, and Keith’s brain slowly picked them apart, as he backtracked to one of the doors. Pidge. Hunk. Shiro. Allura.

            “Silence!” a harsh voice barked, and Keith’s blood turned to ice in his veins.

            He recognized _that one,_ too.

            Keith forced himself to open the door anyway. His stomach lurched as he entered and took in the scene: five posts. Five Paladins. All of them chained, wrists above their heads, and above their wrists, a blade, each one slowly making a descent for their skulls. Keith immediately sought out Lance, who’d ceased shouting for him as soon as he entered the room.

            Lance looked haunted, watery gaze locking onto Keith’s.

            “This can’t be happening,” Keith whispered, and flinched as a hand came down on his shoulder.

            “You’re just in time,” Lotor said cheerfully. “I spent an _awful_ lot of time tracking down these five, after they took dear Blue away from me, and look! They’ve led me right to you!”

            The shouting from the team started up again, a reaching a chaotic crescendo, shouts of _get out while you still can_ and _please help us_ and _I_ _’m too young to die_ and _save yourself_ and _don_ _’t play his game._

            “Here’s the deal, Red One,” Lotor said. “You can save _one_. Just one. And you cannot offer yourself up in their place. Four will die. Two of you will walk out of here, and one of them will be you.”

            Lotor thought for a minute, and then added, “Well, okay, _three_ will walk out of here. One is you. One is _me_. And one is the person of your choice. I would make your decision quickly, if I were you.”

            He was being asked to choose between teammates?

            Keith shook his head, trying to back toward the door, but Lotor shifted his grip, from Keith’s shoulder to his back, and shoved him forward, and then placed himself between Keith and the door.

            “Make your choice, Red Paladin,” Lotor said.

            “I _can_ _’t_ choose between them!” Keith shouted, whirling around to face Lotor. “I won’t! They’re…they’re all I have! Don’t make me do this!”

            Lotor smirked, tilting his head. “One would think that that would make you choose faster, before you lose all five.”

            Panic seized Keith, chest tightening as he turned back around to face his little family. The only family he had left. Keith looked over each one of them—all silent, begging with their eyes for him to save them. Keith’s eyes flicked to Lance again. He’d promised to protect him, no matter what. But then Shiro…the only one who never gave up on Keith. The person who’d basically adopted him at the Garrison, taking him under his wing as soon as his father disappeared. And then Pidge, Keith’s little sister, the youngest of them, too much potential to be snuffed out. But then _Hunk,_ loyal to the very end, a shining light in dark times, the voice of reason when it was needed most. But what about Allura? She’d already lost so much. She deserved to have something good in life—not death by blade, in some science facility on some faraway planet.

            The floor rushed up to meet Keith before he realized what was happening. He clutched at his chest, fingers knotting in the fabric of his shirt.

            “Tick, tock, Keith,” Lotor sing-songed behind him.

            _You have to breathe, and you have to think about this._

            Keith screwed his eyes shut, trying to drown out the sights and sounds of the room around him and focus on nothing but _inhale, exhale, think this through, inhale, exhale, they_ _’re not in their armor, inhale, exhale, no weapons, inhale, exhale_ —

            “Just choose Lance already!” Allura snapped.

            Keith’s head shot up, eyes jumping immediately to the Pink Paladin. She was glaring at him through waterfalls.

            “Everyone knows you’ll choose him. Everyone knows they’re second choice to him.”

            “She’s right,” Shiro said.

            “W-What?” Keith’s voice came out broken. “Sh-Shiro, th-that’s not true—”

            “You wouldn’t choose me?”

            Lance’s pained voice was impossibly soft and impossibly calm for the situation. Keith shifted his gaze over to the Blue Paladin—he was smiling, none of it reaching his eyes, and he let out a mirthless little chuckle. “I always knew I was the extra. It’s all right—I know I’m replaceable.”

            “Lance, stop, you’re not.” Keith managed no more than a hoarse whisper, choking back the sobs that clawed their way up his throat. “P-Please, I—”

            “It’s always about you,” Pidge cut in, voice cold. “No one can do anything that you don’t like! You wouldn’t let me leave to find my father or Matt, because you couldn’t handle it! You refused to give people aid when Shiro disappeared because you didn’t wanna take responsibility! You had to go fight those Blade guys, even when we said not to! It’s _always_ about you!”

            “Just like the Galra,” Hunk added, glaring at Keith. “Putting yourself first and leaving everyone else to fend for themselves.”

            “N-No, it’s not l-like that,” Keith said. “H-Hunk, _please,_ I thought—”

            “Whatever it was, you thought wrong,” Hunk interrupted.

            Keith hunched in on himself, listening to the others alternate between berating him and demanding that he save them.

            _Breathe. Think about this._

_Breathe. You can_ _’t shut down now._

Lotor came up behind Keith again and leaned over him, dangling a key in his face. A key for the cuffs keeping his friends down. He dropped it on the floor in front of Keith unceremoniously.

            “Your time is almost up!” Lotor said, still cheery, sadistic as ever.

            _Think. You need to think, and you need to do it fast._

            Keith raised blurry eyes back to his family, willing himself to tune out the jeers from everyone as they took note of his tear-streaked cheeks, of his trembling form. _Think._

            Keith’s eyes drifted to the blades. They were all at the same level, all descending at the same rate. Keith swept his gaze over all of the other Paladins, a plan formulating in his head. He would need to be fast. He didn’t know where the controls to these blades were, if they existed. If Lotor could reach them and speed them up the moment he caught onto what Keith was doing.

            Keith’s hands curled into fists, and he lunged for Shiro first, making quick work of the cuffs above his head. Shiro stumbled out of them, right into Keith, and the smaller boy held fast to the key.

            “Me? _Seriously?_ ” Shiro asked, while behind him, the others began calling out at Keith.

            “Shiro, move,” Keith ordered, and tried to shove his way past him, only for Shiro to slam him back with his GalraTech arm.

            Keith held his ground, remaining on his feet. Shiro lunged for him, swiping his now-glowing hand for Keith’s.

            “We have to go!” Shiro said. “You’ve made your choice!”

            Keith ducked underneath Shiro’s hand and ran past him, a beeline for Hunk. He had barely gotten the key into the lock for Hunk’s cuffs when Shiro grabbed him by the neck and threw him to the ground, key clattering from his fingers.

            “No!” Keith shouted. “Shiro! Shiro, _please!_ ”

            His voice broke entirely.

            “You’ve made your choice,” Shiro repeated, “now deal with the consequences.”

            Shiro bent down and took Keith by the arm. Lotor came up on Keith’s other side and took his other arm. Keith thrashed in their grips, trying to break free. He made the mistake of looking up as soon as screaming erupted in the room, a bright burst of red in front of him. His stomach roiled, bile burning in the back of his throat.

            _No_ _…no, I didn’t mean for this to happen—_

            The screaming only got louder, the other four members of Team Voltron crying out for each other, crying out at Keith.

            “I thought you wouldn’t let me die!” Lance called after him. “How _could you?_ ”

            _Don_ _’t look at him, don’t look—_

            Keith looked anyway, watched the blade come down, watched Lance scream until he couldn’t scream anymore. Pidge and Allura, the last ones standing—though not for much longer—went into hysterics. Keith’s own heart hammered, and the tears refused to stop coming.

            The door shut between Keith and the others, as Lotor and Shiro dragged him out into a hallway that was now swarming with Galra soldiers. Shiro and Lotor both threw him back, and the back of his head smacked into a wall. His vision went spotty for a few seconds, stars dancing in front of his eyes. The hyperventilating didn’t exactly help.

            “Look at you,” Lotor said, towering over Keith. “Utterly helpless. Pathetic.”

            Shiro stood by and said nothing, leveling disdainful eyes at Keith. Keith recoiled as he looked between the two of them. He was unarmed, and severely outnumbered, and—

            _You_ _’re not aware of your surroundings when you fight._

            When it came down to battle, Keith had an almost one-track mind. In rushing to save his friends, he’d overlooked key problems, like them berating him. Like them going back on words they’d spoken to him before. Like Shiro physically dragging him away from the other team members while they were clearly still in danger. Like him helping Lotor. Like the eerily empty hallways that were now suddenly filled with soldiers. The fact that no one had tried to stop Keith once as he escaped and found his family.

            _Fuck. Fuck fuck fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck—_

            “You’re not real,” Keith whispered. “This—this isn’t real.”

            Lotor delivered a swift kick to Keith’s side that sent him sprawling on the ground. He curled into the fetal position, closing his eyes.

            “You’re not real,” Keith repeated, and Lotor kicked him again.

            “Not real.”

            A kick to the head.

            “Not real.”

            The pain did not exist. None of this existed. His friends were still alive. Still out there, still searching for him. And Keith was probably back in that lab room, still restrained.

            Keith held onto these thoughts even as Lotor kicked him, over and over, and the rage simmered beneath his skin. He dug his nails into his arms, trying to drag himself out of this—what? Hallucination? Simulation?

            “Not real. Not real. It’s not real.”

            He itched to lash out, as Lotor continued to kick him, and Shiro started to mock him, _this is your fault, you could never be my successor, you couldn_ _’t save them, you’re not even grateful that you saved me_.

            “Not real,” Keith muttered still. He would not lash out. A memory came back to him, a memory of a planet and a forest filled with gunfire and an unconscious Paladin at his feet and utter rage running through his veins, and the thought to _kill, kill, kill them_ in his head.

            He wouldn’t go back to that place.

            He couldn’t go back to that place.

            The next kick to his head sent a cloud of darkness over his vision, and Keith could only think, _finally._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Summary in case anyone needed to skip:**  
>  Keith wakes up from his nightmare. The scientists attempt to interrogate him, but he constantly mouths off, so they keep shocking him. They know when he's lying, and they can see the things he sees in his mind on screens in the room (via the head nodes), but he still refuses to give up information. Eventually, the scientists get angry and inject him with something in an attempt to make his Galra traits show up. Keith thinks he felt claws trying to make their way out, but nothing happens.   
> The scientists then try to get more information out of Keith by putting him into a simulation, in which he tries to make an escape, only to find Lance, Pidge, Shiro, Hunk, and Allura all chained up by Lotor, about to be killed by blades over their heads. Keith must choose one, and chooses Shiro (as he's the tallest--Keith was going to try and free everyone) but Shiro and Lotor fight him and drag him out of the room before he can free anyone else. Keith then realizes he's in a sim.
> 
> OKAY YEAH SO ANYWAY I was gonna do my work last night, but this chapter was calling. So for everyone asking for Keith and Lance to be happy...I'm both laughing at you and crying with you.
> 
> Thank you all so much for your lovely comments, by the way!! They make me happy :)
> 
> Next chapter, we're back with Lance. See ya then ;)


	11. The One in Which Lance Steps Up His Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance and Lotor go on a date. Lance isn't having fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spotify playlists for this series: [Deceit So Natural](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/1wdQpSNWYnHNbUnIG3IBad) // [The Pawn](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/1g7DzQNV5U9yzvlRGvajzH) // [The Liar](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/3UoOSCteOzUtYJMJcG2IOH) // [The Prince](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/4S2Eytf2di7rgMr4mNImNI) // [The Prince & the Liar](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/3d3A0wQyq1e4emXIqygrGE) // [The Liar & the Pawn](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/2Yj5WuKJaxcnfjZPRQK8WG) // [The Prince, the Liar, & the Pawn](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/2NALRBQbgOLhdQmm8UNZXh) // [The Team](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/2VMY3duQL2AFnuZG8O5bRg)
> 
> I wrote most of this chapter within the last 12 hours, I really need sleep.
> 
> ALSO UM if you don't like **Lancelot** then you'll probably wanna kill me for this chapter. Yikes. REMEMBER KIDS, THIS ISN'T HEALTHY OR ROMANTIC. **(Also trigger warning for dubcon kissing.)**
> 
> (If you want hints for the repercussions things are gonna have later on, I'm big into psychology ;) )
> 
> Anyway enough rambling from me, here's the chapter.

Chapter 11

            Lance spent the hours between Lotor’s visit and dinner staring at the ceiling, once he finished heaving the contents of his stomach into a toilet bowl. His few attempts to plot out the next several days—a plot to earn Lotor’s trust, earn a weapon, and figure out how to either get into contact with the team or get out of here—all left him feeling worse about his situation than he’d felt before. His escape was riding on too many variables—how soon Lotor would trust him enough to let him roam on his own, or hold a gun or even just a knife, if any officers would be willing to help him, or if they’d just turn him over—and his head ached trying to sort everything out.

            At some point, Lance gave in to the thoughts he’d been trying to keep at bay: all of his thoughts about Keith. He had no idea where he was, or if he was okay, if he’d been eating or if he was starving, if he’d been taken in by someone kind or if he was making his way through a strange world alone, if he was even free or if he’d never escaped Lotor’s people. If Lance was keeping track right, his capture would have been one week ago tomorrow.

            A week without Keith. A week of silence.

            _Where are you?_

            Futilely, Lance tried to reach out with his mind, searching for a link that didn’t exist. He was too far from Keith and the others to find the bond that ran between them when they formed Voltron, when they performed a mind-meld. It was definitely a stronger bond than it had been those first few weeks as a Paladin, but not strong enough to reach across the vastness of space, across moons and planets and galaxies.

            Still, Lance gave it a few minutes of intense concentration before sighing and pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes.

            Blue and Red tried to send waves of comfort down their bonds with Lance, very little of it doing any good. Lance wouldn’t be able to relax until he was out of this command center and back on the castleship, Keith safe in his arms.

            Nights alone in this place were challenging, to say the least. The first couple were okay—Lance had been so exhausted that his slumber was mostly deep and dreamless. The ensuing ones got worse from there on out. First, it was little disturbances in his sleep. Usually just snatches of memory, from the mission on Tarvin Three. Then the nightmares began. Sometimes they involved the whole team. Other times they were solely about Keith. Dying alone. Dying in Lance’s arms. Dying by Lance’s hand. Killing Lance. Screaming as Lance died in his arms.

            These nightmares even began to creep into Lance’s _naps._ And seeing as Lance had spent most days alone in this room, with nothing to do _but_ nap or pace or shower…

            He’d seen Keith die in too many ways.

            His last few sleeps in the castleship before the Tarvin mission, Keith had been there with him. Warm and ready to reassure him that everything was fine, it was okay, _it was just a nightmare, Lance, you_ _’re awake now, I’m here._ Imagining Keith with him, every time he awoke in his quarters _here_ , panting and sweating and on the verge of a panic attack, did nothing but make the ache in his chest worse, remind him of the distance yawning between the two of them.

            _This is pathetic,_ Lance thought suddenly, angrily.

            Here he was, holed up in a cushy room, at least being fed and taken care of, and kept from the prying eyes of others. Keith was probably being _hurt,_ probably left to his own devices. All alone.

            _Boo-hoo. Lance has to pretend to like the emperor. How tragic._

            _“Do not think like that, my child,”_ Blue chided. _“Your circumstances, your fears, your anxieties—they are all different.”_

            _…Maybe. But I could still be_ doing _something, instead of just_ sitting _here._

            Keith would have taken action by now. Keith probably had been taking action for a while now, no matter what situation he was in. And what had Lance done? Let Lotor lead him around like a leashed dog? Sit in this room and think about how miserable he was?

            _“Suffering is relative,”_ Red interrupted sharply. _“Keith wouldn’t want you thinking like this. Keith would understand.”_

            _Suffering is relative._ Lance remembered bayards, and white walls, his back against cold tile floors, nailing a shot just inches from Keith’s face as he blew up a training bot. He remembered another body standing over his, panting and extending a hand after saving him from taking a sword to the face. He remembered discussing weaknesses and nightmares, a steady arm around his shoulders.

            _“If it’s any consolation, I can’t sleep either.”_

_“You have an excuse. You almost died.”_

_“Suffering is relative.”_

            Footsteps echoed in the hallway outside of the door, pulling Lance out of his thoughts of Keith. He dashed for the bathroom on silent feet, shutting the door and turning on the sink just a few moments before he heard the main door to his room open.

            _Let_ _’s make this realistic,_ Lance thought, splashing water on his face, and repeatedly slicking back his hair with the water until his bangs were standing up, curling at their ends. He studied his reflection in the mirror, flinching when Lotor knocked at the door and called, “ _Jeremy,_ are you in there?”

            _This guy,_ Lance agreed with the annoyed look his reflection was giving him.

            “Just a few ticks!” Lance called back, sweetness dripping into his voice. He rolled his eyes and let his cheery expression drop right afterward, as Lotor agreed and announced that he would be _waiting on your bed to tell you something, my dear._

            Lance squared his shoulders at the mirror.

            _No more running away. If you wanna find Keith, you need to get out of this room. You_ _’re_ useless _right now. You won_ _’t be let out of here until you convince Lotor he can trust you. So_ convince him, _Ortega._

            Lance frowned at his reflection, at the hair already falling back down. He glanced over his shoulder, at the rack of soaps and other bottles. He approached the rack and reached for a transparent pink bottle. This substance didn’t look like soap—it looked more like gel. Lance took it back to the sink with him, opened it, and poured a small amount of the substance into his hand.

            It smelled _good,_ and Lance briefly wondered where Lotor did his product shopping, before he remembered that he had priorities.

            Lance rubbed the substance on his hands and began running his hands through his hair, until the top was slicked back and staying. He cocked his head to the side and smirked at his reflection, and then shuddered.

            _That looked mildly horrifying._

            _…This’ll work._

            If he was going to assume a new identity, he didn’t want to associate his own reflection with it. Changing up his hairstyle would at least allow himself some distance from the Jeremy persona. 

            Plus, the stiffness of his hair would now prevent _Lotor_ from running his hands through it—Lance refused to let Lotor ruin one of his favorite gestures of affection.

            _All right._

            Lance narrowed his eyes, widened his smirk.

            _You are Jeremy Ortega, lover and second-in-command of Emperor Lotor of the Galra Empire. You infiltrated the Voltron Paladins. You don_ _’t remember much, just that you are stronger and smarter than everyone else here. They are all beneath you._

            _You are soft only for the Emperor._

            Revulsion pushed at Lance—he shoved it away. He was done sitting around. He was done being dead weight. Keith was facing unknown horrors, all alone. Team Voltron was down two Paladins and two Lions, and Lance knew for _damn sure_ that they were still kicking butt out there. If they could face their present issues and rise, then so could he.

            _You_ _’ve put aside your feelings plenty of times before,_ Lance reminded himself.

            There had been days the team had been out on a mission, and Lance wanted to do nothing more than crawl into a ditch, curl up in a ball, and lie there while his own mind tried to tear him apart from the inside out. Days when everything was falling apart, but he hefted his bayard and carried on with whatever it was he had to do. This had to be no different.

            _This is a mission._

            _For this mission, you are not Lance McClain._

_You are Jeremy Ortega._

Lance rolled his shoulders, gave himself one more cocky look in the mirror, and opened the bathroom door. He strolled into his room and approached Lotor, who sat on the edge of Lance’s bed. Lotor smiled as Lance approached, and rose to his feet when Lance stopped before him.

            “So, what’s this news you have to share?” Lance asked, hugging himself, just to give his limbs something to do.

            Years of (failed) flirting experiences gave Lance’s voice just the right lilt—attention-grabbing, but not forceful. Playful, but not immature. A careful balance he’d spent years trying to perfect, only to find out in the end that sometimes you just needed to be sent off into space and spend every waking moment of your day annoying someone until—

            _Stop. Not the time. Keith isn_ _’t here. You aren’t Lance._

            Later, once he was back in this room for the night, he would have to spend time coming up with the finer details of his Jeremy persona, to make slipping in and out of it more effortless. For now, he’d have to wing it.

            Not like he hadn’t already been doing that.

            “While you were in the bathing room,” Lotor said, reaching out and pulling apart Lance’s arms, so he could take his hands, “I decided that it would be a much more pleasant experience to tell you at dinner. We won’t be in the dining room tonight; I’ve arranged something more…private, if you will.”

            _He found out and he_ _’s going to murder me,_ Lance thought immediately, and then, _He won_ _’t murder me, he’ll probably just torture me or something. Or contact the team and hold me over their heads. Or—_

            Lotor pulled Lance closer to him, and Lance let him, even as everything in his mind screamed to cut this out, drop the act, be defiant and raise hell.

            _Raising hell won_ _’t get you access to weapons or the computers._

            “Come with me,” Lotor said, and let go of just one of Lance’s hands. He used the other to pull Lance along as they left his room, door shutting behind them.

            The hallways here were empty, which made sense, the more Lance thought about it. This hallway was already secluded as it was. Lance couldn’t escape from his room by himself, which gave Lotor no reason to post guards outside his door, or anywhere near it, for that matter.

            _“He’s overcontrolling. Downright abusive.”_

            Allura’s voice rang loud and clear in Lance’s mind, as he fit the pieces together. Lotor controlled who came and went from Lance’s room. Who Lance was exposed to. He made Lance completely dependent on his presence to get in and out of his room, to get around the ship, for food. Lance had authority over nothing except for when he slept and bathed and dressed—and even then, the soaps were not his choice. The clothes were not his choice. The bed was not his choice.

            Only acting as Jeremy was Lance’s choice, and it had been that or sitting around in a cell, probably being tortured at random intervals by the druids, his brain sifted through for information to use against the team. To use to break him.

            _You_ _’re supposed to be in love. Focus on the task at hand._

            Lotor abruptly pulled Lance down another secluded hallway, just as they’d been reaching a more populated one. Lance stifled his cry of surprise, so that the officers and guards milling about didn’t hear him.

            “Where are we going?” Lance whispered, glancing around the area.

            His mind raced with the possibilities of where Lotor could’ve been taking him, very few of them a pleasant scenario.

            “Here we are,” Lotor said, either vaguely answering Lance’s question or ignoring it entirely.

            Lotor opened the door they were presently standing in front of and pulled Lance slowly into a dim room. Lance’s heart thudded, each beat seeming louder and louder in his ears. The room was not just dim, Lance realized when the door shut behind him. The entire place was pitch black—he couldn’t see his own hand in front of his face.

            “Remain where you are, my love,” Lotor said, “just for one moment.”

            _Breathe,_ Lance thought to himself. _He won_ _’t kill you—in, one, two, three, four—he won’t hurt you—hold, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven—he thinks you love him—out, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight—he’s got no reason to hurt you._

            Still, Lance’s instincts, built up over nearly a year of defending the universe, kept him on edge, mind instantly thinking of the possible ways he could fight his way out of here if he was caught in an ambush. He didn’t have many options, really—no weapons but his own self, no Galran DNA to operate the print pads that opened the doors, and no way to fight off more than two people at once…and that two was _generous._

            “Ah, there we are,” Lotor said, from somewhere in the room.

            Lance cringed as his ears filled with the sound of metal squeaking and grinding, light finally filtering into the room. The light grew brighter and more expansive, and Lance saw now that Lotor had pressed some button that activated metal blinds. They pulled away from a glass wall, revealing one of the most breathtaking views of the galaxy Lance had ever seen.

            It clicked in his mind that this was an observation deck, and before Lance could move to the wall, he took notice of a table in the center of the room, two chairs at opposite ends, food laid out across a glittering tablecloth.

            Lance’s chest tightened at the sight of it all.

            Somewhere between his first act as Jeremy Ortega and now, Lotor had clearly spent time looking over his files on Earth again, and their dating customs. Or dating stereotypes, at the very least. This setup was romantic, Lance could not deny it. With that knowledge came the crushing realization that his first true date in space was not only _romantic and cheesy,_ a way Lance would admit to liking, but he was on this date with the person in the universe he probably hated the most.

            _I wish Keith were here._

            Lance let that thought simmer for a few moments, as he stared at the table, envisioning himself and Keith sitting across from each other, talking and eating for an hour or two, and spending the rest of the night on the floor in front of the stars. They could bring in pillows and blankets. They could make a fort, and spend the night watching the galaxies go by, before falling asleep tangled up in each other…

            “Jeremy?” Lotor asked tentatively.

            _Shoot. Focus._

            _You_ _’re Jeremy. You hate Keith. You think Keith is dead._

“Yes, sweetheart?” Lance asked softly, because even now, he could not bring himself to be flirtatious, his visions of Keith refusing to fade away.

            “You appear…distant,” Lotor said, cocking his head.

            _He_ _’s getting suspicious,_ Lance’s mind hissed at once. _Fix this._

            “I’m just taking it all in,” Lance answered. “It’s _beautiful_ here.”

            He took long, slow strides to Lotor, until he was close enough to grab hands with Lotor and clasp them, bringing them up to shoulder height. Well—Lance’s shoulder height.

            Lance was used to being the taller one in a relationship—most girls were shorter than him, a good amount of guys were shorter than him, and so was _Keith_. Lance had gotten used to Keith’s height, had gotten used to leaning down to kiss him, to rest his chin on Keith’s shoulder—

            _Yes. Okay. You_ _’re shorter than Lotor. Get over it. Be romantic._

            “Only the best for you, my love,” Lotor said.

            They met gazes, and Lance settled for staring wide-eyed at the emperor, until Lotor let his gaze drop to Lance’s mouth.

            _I_ _’m not going to throw up again before I eat, dammit,_ Lance thought. So he narrowed his eyes and let the corner of his mouth turn up in a smirk. He released Lotor’s hands and turned his back on him, approaching the dinner table. He cast a look over his shoulder, a look that left Lotor stunned and had Lance’s stomach protesting.

            “Not yet,” Lance said. “Not until after dinner and this news of yours.”

            Lotor wasn’t exactly _pleased_ with this turn of events, but to Lance, he at least appeared _amused_.

            “Of course,” Lotor said, and came up beside Lance, pulling out his chair and gesturing for him to sit.

            Lance obliged, and once he sat down, Lotor pushed his chair in—Lance had forgotten how strong most of the Galra were—and trailed a hand across Lance’s shoulders as he moved to his own seat. Between the thin fabric of his shirt, and the lightness of Lotor’s touch, and Lance’s general disgust with this whole situation, he shivered.

            Lotor read it exactly the way Lance needed him to.

            His smirk grew wider as he looked at Lance, and Lance tried to imagine the thoughts running through Lotor’s head right now:

            _Oh, goody! The boy is brainless! He_ _’s into this! I have established my dominance and will proceed to shove it down his throat for the duration of his stay! Unless he gives me those wonderfully big doe eyes again, in which case I must become flustered and make myself out to be an embarrassment in front of my officers! If they call me on it, though, I’ll just get rid of them! Because that’s how I handle my problems!_

            Okay, so maybe his thoughts weren’t exactly like that, but Lance wanted to assume he was pretty close.

            Lance dropped his gaze away from Lotor and toward the food, and Lotor did the same—after a while, they both had plates full of food, Lotor’s piled much higher than Lance’s. Lance wasn’t taking chances here; they were alone, and this would have been the perfect time to poison his food, or spike it with some random drug to put him completely out of it. He didn’t trust his drink, either. It fizzed, and one sip of it told Lance it must’ve been the space equivalent of champagne, or something.

            Despite whatever Pidge said, Lance knew his alcohol limits.

            Just one incident would do that to a person.

            (One incident he was _not_ going to reflect on right now, because he was miserable enough as it was.)

            “So,” he said, after some time swimming through his thoughts, breaking up the strangely calming silence that had fallen over the dinner, “you said you had something to tell me.”

            “Oh, yes,” Lotor said.

            He put his utensils down and folded his hands, staring across the table at Lance. Lance, unsure of what to do, slowly set down his own utensils and tried to return the intense look that Lotor was giving him.

            “Tomorrow, I think I will officially reinstate your position as my second-in-command,” Lotor said.

            Lance’s heart missed a beat. Did he hear that right? Lotor was actually going to put some trust in him?

            _Am I going to get a weapon? Please, I need a blaster, I need computer access—_

            “I have decided that it’s not fair to keep you cooped up in your room all quintant,” Lotor went on. “Especially since I miss seeing your handsome face most vargas.”

            _Way to ruin it,_ Lance thought, keeping a pleasant (and as loving as he could possibly muster, under the circumstances) smile on his face.

            “So,” Lotor said, “tomorrow, we’ll make a broadcast, you and I. You will officially reclaim your position as my second-in-command. And…perhaps…to ensure we will never lose each other…if you’d say yes…”

            _Quiznak._

            _Fucking quiznak._

            _No._

_Absolutely not._

            From some small pocket on his belt, Lotor produced a ring, and Lance wished that he could just crawl in a ditch and not deal with this right now.

            _This is happening, and you have to deal with it._

 _He_ _’s going to coerce you into this._

 _He thinks you_ _’re completely out of it._

“Lotor,” Lance said, voice cracking nervously. “I—I accept my position as second-in-command once again, but what you’re asking of me in addition…”

            The hopeful look on Lotor’s face cracked, but did not crumble. Not that Lance could visibly see. More like the cracks melted and morphed into something else, something nearly unreadable— _nearly._ Lance had worn that mask enough to know it was a thin smile hiding gut-wrenching disappointment.

            Except, in Lotor’s case, maybe gut-wrenching wasn’t the best word for it.

            _Oh, drat, he refuses to be bound to me, something I know is very deceitful and will come back to bite him later. How awful,_ Lance supplied in his head.

            “I need time,” Lance conceded. “I’m still trying to piece together my past, and so far, it has been slow-going. I need time for recovery, but then…maybe afterward…when my head is in a clearer state.”

            Lance held his breath as he waited for a response. Lotor would have no qualms about sending him to the druids if it meant wiping his brain and starting fresh. Lance particularly liked his brain in its current state—despite his mental issues, which were all _his,_ thank you very much, Lotor was not allowed to tamper with _anything_.

            “Of course,” Lotor said. “My apologies.”

            Lance nodded, face flushing, and he dropped his gaze back down to his food.

            The rest of the dinner carried on in awkwardly-charged silence, save for the sounds of eating utensils scraping plates. Lance found his gaze continually drifting to the windows, to the infinite cosmos stretching out beyond the glass.

            Once the meal was over, that was where Lance ended up standing, one palm flat against the cool surface. Stars, suns and moons, asteroids and comets, planets and people and ships—they were all out there.

            His family on Earth was out there.

            The team was out there.

            Keith was out there.

            _I_ _’m going to find you,_ Lance promised, even though Keith couldn’t hear one word of his thoughts. _I_ _’m doing my best, and I hope you can forgive the things I have to do. I swear, I’ll make it up to you._

Lance flinched as someone who definitely wasn’t Keith, or any other member of the team, or his family, came up behind him, snaking their arms around his waist. Lance forced himself to relax, reminded himself that this was what lovers did.

            “I hope the evening was to your liking,” Lotor whispered in Lance’s ear.

            _Too close, too close._

            Lance turned around, Lotor loosening his grasp to allow him the movement. But he was still _too damn close,_ and Lance stumbled back, body hitting the glass of the window, while Lotor stood over him.

            “You exceeded my expectations,” Lance said, which was about as truthful as he could get.

            “Really?” Lotor asked, genuine surprise in his voice.

            He pretended to casually rest his palm against the glass, as a means of supporting himself. His palm was inches from Lance’s head—he was trying to box Lance in. Lance had seen this in movies plenty of times before. Every time that he could recall, the person being boxed in had shrunk away from whoever was boxing them. Whether playing at being shy or nervous, well—the narrative framed it as playing, usually, but Lance knew that probably wasn’t the case.

            Either way, he wouldn’t react the same.

            He would not let Lotor step all over him.

            Two thoughts entered Lance’s mind simultaneously:

            _I_ _’m so sorry about this, Keith,_ and _this should keep him off my case for a while._

            “Really,” Lance replied, mouth turning up coyly, “now let me exceed yours.”

            He grabbed at the collar of Lotor’s shirt—armor, really—and yanked him in, mouths crashing together. Lotor made a noise of surprise before he realized just what was happening, before he began to kiss Lance back.

            _I_ _’m sorry Keith I’m so sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry—_

            Lance poured all of his frustrations into the kiss. He had to make this as believable as possible. If he played things right, Lotor would be dazed about this for a few days, and Lance would have the time to make a plan,  figure out where Keith was, and then execute his plan.

            For now, though, he was reduced to this.

            Lance broke for air first, narrowing his eyes as he looked up at Lotor.

            _Just as I expected._

            Lotor gaped a little at him, before drawing back to regain his composure.

            “That—you—well, you…you’ve exceeded…”

            Lance smiled at him and grabbed his hand. “Tomorrow, perhaps we can do that again,” he said, “but for now, I’m exhausted. I think an early turn-in is necessary.”

            Lotor nodded mutely, and escorted Lance from the observation deck back to his room. As soon as Lotor was gone, footsteps fading back down the hallway, along with the mutterings about _what the quiznak_ and _I never imagined_ and _I liked that very much_ and _get it together,_ Lance made another dash for the toilet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm probably gonna fail my psych test in the morning but whatever, it's 2:21 AM I have to be awake soon.
> 
> Not quite sure who we're seeing next chapter, it might be a whole bunch of people. Haven't done one of those kinds of chapters in a while. Lance is definitely back, though.


	12. The One in Which Lotor Sends Out a Broadcast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance has another mild anxiety/panic attack; Lotor's still an obsessive creep with a plan; Team Voltron receives their broadcast; another character feels pretty damn guilty and decides to do something about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spotify playlists for this series: [Deceit So Natural](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/1wdQpSNWYnHNbUnIG3IBad) // [The Pawn](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/1g7DzQNV5U9yzvlRGvajzH) // [The Liar](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/3UoOSCteOzUtYJMJcG2IOH) // [The Prince](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/4S2Eytf2di7rgMr4mNImNI) // [The Prince & the Liar](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/3d3A0wQyq1e4emXIqygrGE) // [The Liar & the Pawn](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/2Yj5WuKJaxcnfjZPRQK8WG) // [The Prince, the Liar, & the Pawn](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/2NALRBQbgOLhdQmm8UNZXh) // [The Team](https://open.spotify.com/user/nerdyspaceace/playlist/2VMY3duQL2AFnuZG8O5bRg)
> 
> So, it's almost 5 AM, and listen, I was gonna finish this tomorrow, but then I remembered I have all this homework to do, and I have to wake up at a set time anyway, so it doesn't matter _when_ I go to bed. PLUS, I was ABOUT to go to bed, but started hearing creepy noises an HOUR after I read a creepy Twitter thread (it was another thread from Adam Ellis, and anyone familiar with that situation knows how creepy it is), so I _couldn't_. Now that sunrise is soon, I can get like, four hours of sleep. It'll be okay. 
> 
> Also I just really wanted to write this chapter. 
> 
> Trigger warnings for more **dubcon kissing/Lancelot content** , Lotor being a **creepy, coercive _piece of shit_** , and some mildly graphic descriptions of **burn injuries**.
> 
> Okay, read on!

Chapter 12

            Lance held down the contents of this stomach this time, despite sitting before the toilet, gagging and dry-heaving, for a solid ten minutes. When he was certain he was done, he rose to weak legs and stumbled into the shower room, and proceeded to spend nearly an hour in the water, scrubbing every inch of himself clean. He only got out once the room steamed up, the heat becoming overwhelmingly dizzying—and yet, still not as dizzying as the runaway train his thoughts had become.

            _You really did that. That actually happened. You—and Lotor—_

            Lance got dressed for bed slowly, with the detached, disjointed movement of a machine in dire need of oil. He hardly even paid mind to the towel piled on his head as he pulled on his pajamas. Despite the finery of his clothing and the solitude of his room, Lance did not feel safe or relaxed; silks that should have been as smooth as the surface of still water chafed against his skin, while metal that should have been a cool relief from the heat of the shower pierced the bottoms of his bare feet.

            Even reentering the bathroom to try and replicate his skincare routine, for the first time in the week he’d been trapped here, did nothing to calm him down. His breathing exercises failed him. He ended up as he had been that first day, after Lotor’s first visit to his room—bent over the sink, drawing in ragged breaths, blood tearing through his veins like a wildfire in some places, while others turned to ice floes.

            _You did that. Willingly. Why did you do that? Why did you even start doing this, why couldn_ _’t you have just been defiant, why are you doing this to yourself what if the team finds out what if_ Keith _finds out they won_ _’t forgive you_ he _won_ _’t forgive you what if you’re too convincing tomorrow what if they don’t cometorescueyouwhatiftheyleaveyouhereforever—_

            _Stop it stop it STOP IT BREATHE—dammit, dammit, quiznaking dammit._

            _Just. Breathe._

            _You have. To breathe._

            _This can_ _’t be a habit._

_You_ _’ll never survive._

As per the usual, Blue and Red were trying to send waves of calm down their bonds with Lance, waves that barely lapped shore as Lance’s grip on the sides of the sink turned white-knuckled. He inhaled sharply and exhaled in much the same manner, trying to force his breaths out more slowly, lest he begin hyperventilating and end up passing out, as nice as the option seemed. He thought maybe he was getting the hang of things—he managed to keep it together as long as it had taken to get back to his room—but reflecting on it, analyzing it, brought everything into sharper focus.

            Brought just how far _in over his head_ he was into sharper focus.

            And now he had tomorrow’s broadcast to worry about, on top of everything else.

            _That_ _’s right, Lance,_ he thought to himself, heartbeat slowing as he tried to measure breaths, _think about the broadcast and plan. You just have to think. Just don_ _’t go too deep._

            _Just don_ _’t go too deep,_ Lance repeated in his head, and then snorted, despite everything. Going deep was his _specialty._ Friendships, emotions, didn’t matter—Lance was twenty feet below the water before anyone could stop him. It happened every time, without fail. It made his distance from the team—from _Keith_ —all the more crushing. Someone was usually there to pull him back when he got so far he could no longer see the surface. Now all he had was Blue and Red—not to be ungrateful—but it would help to have someone to physically _hold onto_ and ground himself and find a source of warmth and safety and—

            _“My child, you must breathe,”_ Blue purred. _“Your broadcast. Focus on that.”_

            Right, right, the broadcast, where Lotor would announce to the universe that his lover, Jeremy Ortega—a person literally no one will ever have heard of until that broadcast—had finally returned home to take up his position—sorry, no _reclaim_ his position—as Lotor’s second-in-command, and then Lance would probably have to prove once again that he liked Lotor, which, he very much did _not,_ and _what if the team sees the broadcast, what are they going to think_ —

            _That_ _’s it. The team._

            An idea came to Lance, one he’d need to ponder, but it was something to grab onto, the life preserver he so desperately needed, and he’d cling to it for as long as he could.

            _Time to get to work._

* * *

            Emperors did not get anxious.

            Emperors also did not get distracted by petty things like feelings, or strange sensations, such as one’s insides feeling as though they were doing an ancient Galran jig (and, despite how pleasant the idea of a jig sounded, Lotor’s insides felt anything _but_ ).

            Things were working out far better than Lotor ever could have planned. He expected by now, now that a movement had passed since the Blue Paladin— _former_ Blue Paladin, Lotor corrected, because _Jeremy_ was not going _anywhere—_ had reentered Lotor’s possession, that Jeremy would have at least begun to regain some of his memories. Or would still be questioning and suspicious and on edge. However, dinner last night had proven that his fears seemed to have basis no more.

            Jeremy was fully in his grasp. Madly in love, by all accounts.

            The ghost of his kiss with Jeremy haunted Lotor all night, robbing him of much-needed sleep—the humans sometimes referred to their slumbering hours as “beauty sleep,” which Lotor found true in both Jeremy’s case and his own. If he didn’t _sleep,_ he could not maintain what he had going on, which, in his own _humble_ opinion, thank you, was a very good look.

            (One Jeremy outdid any quintant of the movement, to which Lotor _might_ openly admit.)

            Lotor gave himself a final once-over in the mirror of his bathroom, frowning. He’d done his best to get rid of the tired edges around his eyes, but _alas,_ they seemed destined to stay. His officers would be questioning why their fearless leader had the marks of exhaustion on his face, and he’d have to make up some excuse, like he was up all night strategizing.

            He _could_ be truthful with them, but they would think him weak, and then they’d find an opening. A place to drive in the knife and twist and bring about the fall of his reign.

            _You got rid of the disloyal ones,_ Lotor reminded himself.

            But no, no he did not.

            He got rid of the disloyal ones who had a chance to leak important information across the galaxy. There were still other officers—those better-suited to fighting, those better-suited for speaking and politics—that remained on his ship. The fighters could organize a resistance to take him out, just as the Marmora operatives had. And how many Marmorites were at _Central Command?_ Sure, his ship had been cleansed, but not the sprawling heart of the Empire—

            _Hackers. Hackers remain here._

            Lotor had taken the best of the bunch on his ship when his father’s duties had been passed down to him, and then he’d gone and shot them into space. The weaker ones were still here, but they were hackers nonetheless. Were any of them Marmorites? Were any of them seeking to aid the Blue Paladin— _he is no longer the Blue Paladin, he is_ yours—

            _This is not the time._

            He had to keep himself together. He had a broadcast to put out, after all. After this broadcast, the whole galaxy would know the name Jeremy Ortega, would know that he was Lotor’s lover, and Lotor’s right hand, and maybe they’d piece together the plans Lotor had for their future—a future Jeremy _would_ come around to, one way or another.

            _Overthinking is a mark of weakness,_ Lotor remembered then, and pushed aside any other troubling thoughts, to make room for the more elating thoughts, like that he was about to go and get Jeremy, so they could make and put out their broadcast, and then begin plotting the best ways to take down Voltron. Lotor had his own plans, of course: take the Lions, every last one of them, and then take the Paladins as prisoners.

            Not at once, of course. That was how the Paladins would escape. If he could pick off one in the next battle—the Green One seemed the obvious choice, seeing as his forces had come close in one of their encounters yesterday—the team would only break down further, lose morale, and lose their fighting spirit. Then he’d take another, and another, until none of them remained. Maybe he’d have the druids pick them apart for information. Maybe he’d pit them against each other in the arena—what a spectacle _that_ would be.

            Eventually, they’d all be dead. All except for La— _Jeremy._ If he ever snapped out of his amnesia, it would be too late; he’d have nothing to return to, and by then, he would have truly fallen for Lotor. He’d have no _desire_ to go back.

            A perfect plan, really.

            Lotor gave himself another once-over (making his other one no longer his last, _darn it, he was running late now_ ) and strode out of his own bathing room, out of his room, and down the hall. Just around a tight corner—a hallway hidden from sight that not one of his guards knew about, that wouldn’t show up on any of the ship’s official maps, because Lotor was _not_ trying to get assassinated, thank you—was the corridor to Jeremy’s room, the same corridor that led to the main halls of the ship.

            “Jeremy,” Lotor called, stopping in front of the door, rapping twice, “are you ready for our broadcast, my love?”

            Jeremy emerged from his room ticks later, smiling demurely. “Good morning, sweetheart. Yes, I’ve been spending most of my morning preparing.”

            That he did. Lotor’s eyes wandered over Jeremy’s body, and the form-fitting outfit he’d chosen for the day—save, of course, for the cape he’d selected—a deep black, glittering faintly purple with whatever had been stitched into the fabric. The cape covered his shoulders and the top half of his chest, and clasped in the middle with a fuchsia brooch.

            Lotor dragged his eyes up to Jeremy’s face. It was _pristine,_ nearly glowing, and his hair was slicked back yet again, giving full view of those entrancing _eyes_ …

            “Well, what are we waiting for?” Jeremy asked, snapping Lotor out of his stupor.

            Broadcast. Yes. That was the reason he’d come here.

            Lotor slid an arm around Jeremy’s waist. He fit snugly at Lotor’s side, and Lotor almost began _humming_ to himself, as they started their walk toward the bridge, his anxieties seeming to melt away. What had he been worried about, anyway? His _officers?_ Please. He could just put them in a pod and eject them into space if he wanted to. Or he could hand Jeremy a gun and see if old instincts kicked in. Either way—his officers were beneath him, and Lotor would make sure they knew that, with Jeremy at his side if need be.

* * *

            “A _week?!_ ”

            Pidge’s voice reached a level of shrill Shiro had _never_ heard, not even when Pidge was much younger and shrieking at Matt for one reason or another. Next to him, Hunk grimaced, and both of them turned toward Allura, ever the level-headed person in even the tensest of situations…well, usually.

            “It was Shiro’s idea,” Allura stated calmly, as though she wasn’t handing down Shiro’s death sentence. “Though your armor and quick movement prevented you from losing your legs entirely, the blast from the lasers _did_ melt your armor and your jumpsuit. They became fused to your skin, and we’d had to perform surgery before getting you into a pod. Things were…a bit dicey.”

            Pidge looked down at her legs in confusion, initial anger melting away. She was standing on both feet— _human_ feet, her _own_ feet, not prosthetics. So how bad could things have been?

            Allura must have read the question in her face.

            “The blast shocked your system,” Allura said, voice quieter. “We were all already very stressed and at a lack of proper sleep. The adrenaline that kept us going during the battle wore off, and with your injuries, your body took it the worst. We couldn’t get you into a pod until all of the melted armor was off of you. Keeping you breathing on the operating table was…challenging, to put it lightly.”

            Pidge really wished Allura would stop beating around the bush and just _say it,_ say that _you almost died, Pidge, that_ _’s why we kept you in the pod for a whole week,_ but then she saw Shiro’s face. He _looked_ like death, the way Pidge imagined she might’ve looked as they rushed to peel melted bits of armor from her calves, rushed to keep her breathing and get her into a pod.

            “We also didn’t want you to come out of the pod and immediately head back into battle,” Allura said.

            And that was true. Yesterday night, when Pidge first emerged, the first thing that’d happened was Hunk shoving food at her and demanding she _eat,_ because _you were just in a pod, and we weren_ _’t exactly eating much before that battle, now shut up and take the goo._ The second thing was Shiro carrying her to bed, because she reached a point where she couldn’t keep her eyes open for more than two seconds, and there was no way she was making it across the castle to her room.

            That made today eight days since the team’s battle.

            “Unfortunately,” Allura went on, “Lotor got wind that the Green Paladin went down in battle. He sent forces chasing us across galaxies. The day before you came out of the pod was our first day without a battle, and we wanted to wait to make sure we wouldn’t be attacked again before letting you out.”

            Shiro’s gaze darkened as Allura spoke, which was usually a normal occurrence when Lotor and the Galra were brought up, but then _Hunk_ _’s_ face began to resemble something murderous.

            “You’re not telling me something,” Pidge said, narrowing her eyes.

            Allura sucked in a little breath and shot glances at the yellow and black paladins, wondering if she should even reveal whatever she was holding back.

            “Hunk managed to pull a few transmissions between ships,” Allura finally said. “Not nearly as many as we could’ve pulled with you at working capacity, but it was an excellent feat nonetheless. What we found was…disturbing.”

            “They were going to try and shoot down the ship, infiltrate it, and kidnap you,” Hunk said, voice completely void of emotion. “The next step then would have either been to take the Green Lion, or try and lure the rest of us into some kind of trap, and try to catch another one of us. Lotor’s got some kind of plan, but that’s the only thing he’s told his officers.”

            “There’s also been a broadcast out of the Empire,” Shiro cut in. “We didn’t watch it yet. Hunk insisted you be here to see it with us, and we couldn’t disagree. Of course, we also really didn’t have _time—_ ”

            “What are you waiting for?! Why couldn’t we have _started_ with that?!” Pidge interrupted, throwing up her hands.

            “Well…,” Allura started, and looked to Shiro or Hunk to say something.

            _Can you guys not with this whole_ _‘let’s keep secrets from Pidge’ thing,_ Pidge thought exasperatedly, swinging her gaze toward the two of them.

            “We hadn’t even realized a broadcast went out,” Shiro said, kneeling down to Pidge’s level and putting a hand on her shoulder.

            _Oh no. Here comes the Concerned Dad Voice._

            “We’ve been keeping up communications with the Olkari, the Nivonians, and the Tarvinians, and a few other members of the Alliance, while we’ve been looking for Keith, and the Olkari were the ones who told us a broadcast went out,” Shiro explained. “They said that…we’re not going to like what we’re going to see.”

            “It’s from the _Galra_ —” Pidge started, and would’ve gone on to say _of course we_ _’re not going to like their fucking broadcast,_ but Shiro kept going.

            “They said Lance was in it.”

            Pidge only had a brief few seconds to think about the torture Lance was probably undergoing at the hands of the Galra—why else would they put out a broadcast?—before Shiro read the look on her face.

            “They told us he wasn’t _hurt,_ at least as far as they could see. But we really need to watch it for ourselves.”

            “I’m pulling it up now,” Coran called, from his place on the bridge.

            He’d been silent this whole time, working away at something, letting the Paladins talk things out with each other. Pidge was almost glad for it—she didn’t want to see Coran’s face as pale as Shiro’s, or as dark with anger as Hunk’s, or as drawn with barely-concealed worry as Allura’s. Lance and Keith were gone, and everyone else was breaking down. Coran was the closest thing they had to a light in this darkness.

            Even Hunk, sunny as he normally was, could not fill that role.

            Not now.

            Pidge’s thoughts dissipated as the bridge lights dimmed, the front windows brightening with a video feed. The Paladins all moved toward the front, and were greeted with two figures standing in the center. One Pidge recognized right off the bat—purple skin that she wanted to mar, white hair she wanted to chop off and then strangle him with, eyes with the diseased-looking sclerae. He stood on the right side of the feed. At the left was a figure that took a moment too long to register with Pidge.

            It was _Lance._

            And he looked positively _enamored_ with Lotor.

            “This broadcast is a week old, bear in mind,” Coran called meekly, as gasps went up around the bridge.

            _A week old._ If Pidge hadn’t been in that pod, if she hadn’t had the _reckless idea_ to go down to that planet’s surface and try and get information, they could’ve seen this sooner. So much could’ve happened in a week, _this is all my fault—_

            _“Greetings, citizens of this glorious Empire,”_ Lotor greeted, staring into the feed straight-on. Lance appeared to be snapping out of some sort of stupor at Lotor’s voice, face turning red and smile growing just a bit wider as he shifted his gaze forward.

            “What did they do to him?” Hunk whispered, mortified.

            Pidge agreed; between the lovestruck looks he was throwing in Lotor’s direction, and the slicked-back hair, and the substance on his face— _nobody_ glowed like that, Pidge was fairly certain he was wearing some kind of shimmery makeup—Pidge could not reconcile this boy with the older brother she’d come to know and love.

            _“I come to you all today with several announcements,”_ Lotor said. _“The first: I present to you, Jeremy Ortega, my dear, brave love, back after suffering for so long at the hands of the Paladins of Voltron.”_

            Shiro inhaled sharply.

            “Wait a sec…,” Hunk muttered to himself.

            Pidge hardly heard him, too concentrated on watching Lance and Lotor. She did her best to note as much as she could in just this one watch-through—the way Lotor’s arm tightened around Lance’s waist, the way his fingers and hand could not quite sit still, and the strangeness of Lance’s stance. He was almost… _rigid?_ And Lotor appeared oblivious. And were Lance’s eyes twitching? Did the druids do something to him? Or was he batting them at Lotor?

            _“The second,”_ Lotor continued, _“is that Jeremy is my second-in-command, and has held this position for some time now. Now that he has had time to recover from the injuries he received in his infiltration of the Paladins, he has felt up to taking up the reins of his position once more. And after months of secrecy, he has decided to become open about this role with the universe. Isn’t that right, my dear?”_

            Lotor brought his other hand to Lance’s jaw, and Pidge looked away as soon as Lotor started to caress him. Seconds later, Hunk made a gagging noise, and Pidge didn’t look up until Shiro quietly gave her the all-clear.

            _“The third announcement,”_ Lotor went on, smiling at Lance before looking forward again, _“is that the reward for the turning over of the remaining members of Team Voltron has gone up. Anyone willing to hand over the Green, Black, or Yellow Lions, or Princess Allura of Altea, Coran Smythe, Takashi Shirogane, Pidge Holt, or Hunk Garrett will receive a monetary reward, as well as the reverence of all the galaxy, including reverence from myself and Jeremy.”_

            Pidge couldn’t feel her legs. Or her arms, for that matter. Her mind swam, clogging up the rest of her senses. Was this what an out-of-body experience felt like?

            _Pidge Holt. He just shot my name into space. He just_ _…put it out there. Everyone in space knows that Pidge Holt is a Paladin of Voltron._

            “What the _fuck?_ ” Shiro asked, out loud.

            “The Eruda Center,” Hunk pieced together. He was the only one who hadn’t reacted, almost as though he’d hardly been paying attention to Lotor’s words. “They took it over. They have all of the information.”

            His narrowed eyes stayed glued to the screen—glued to Lance.

            _“My final announcement,”_ Lotor said, _“is directed at Team Voltron. You have the option to turn yourselves over, and perhaps, in spite of all of your crimes, I will spare you all of execution, and have you jailed. The choice is yours. As for the rest of the Empire: I will restore our glory. I will make this Empire the most glorious it’s ever been. Vrepit Sa!”_

            The feed ended with Lotor and Lance both looking straight ahead. For a fraction of a second—such a brief timeframe that Pidge nearly missed it, Lance’s smile faded, before returning in full force.

            “That’s it,” Hunk said, apparently having caught it, too. “Rewind the video. Watch Lance’s eyes—I can’t be the only one seeing it.”

            Coran rewound the video to the start, everyone studying Lance in intense silence, ignoring Lotor’s words. Pidge understood, now, that Lance’s eyes hadn’t just been _twitching._

            “That’s Morse code,” Shiro said, after a couple of minutes, surprise edging his voice. “Is he…is he faking all of this?”

            “Restart the video again, Coran. Please,” Hunk said, voice tight.

            So Coran did, stopping the video just before the team would have been subjected to watching Lotor kiss Lance again.

            Pidge paid much closer attention this time, but it was Hunk deciphering Lance’s blinking.

            “I…M…O…K—”

            “He’s okay,” Shiro said, nodding slowly. “He’s okay.”

            Pidge shot a skeptical look at Hunk, but said nothing as the feed continued.

            “F…I…N…D…K…E…I…T…H. Find Keith,” Hunk said. “So I take it he doesn’t know where Keith is. He would’ve given us Keith’s location, if that was the case.”

            Lance didn’t have time to blink out anything else before the feed ended. The group turned inward, looking between each other, unsure of what to say. Shiro finally sighed and broke the silence.

            “So he’s faking it,” Shiro said. “He…”

            “He’s not okay, that’s what he is,” Hunk cut in. “He’ll say he’s okay, but he’s definitely _not._ I’ve been his best friend for years. I could _see it._ He’s _dying inside_ over there, and…and he still wants us to save Keith before we save him.”

            Hunk’s hands clenched into fists at his side, his shoulders bunched. Pidge reached out and grabbed his left hand, uncurling the fist so she could slide her hand in. Hunk looked down at her, and Pidge tried to ignore the tears gathering in the corners of his eyes.

            “He’s definitely not okay mentally,” Pidge said slowly, “but he’s okay as far as injuries go, from the looks of it. And you know how he is when it comes down to dealing with his problems, Hunk. He’ll always put someone else before himself. I don’t wanna sound like a jerk, but we _have_ to find Keith first. We know where Lance is, and we know that he’s not being tortured. Physically, I mean. Whereas Keith, we don’t know _where_ he is beyond some obscure system name, and we only know he’s alive because Black says he is. We don’t know if he’s in pain or being tortured or _what._ The sooner we find Keith, the sooner we can go get Lance.”

            Hunk nodded.

            “You’re right, I know…but _still_ …”

            Hunk looked wistfully at the now-darkened screen. Shiro reached out and put a hand on his shoulder.

            “You’ve gotta have faith in him. He’ll be able to pull through this,” Shiro said. “I _know_ , he won’t be the same coming out of it. We’ll just have to be there for him. But I promise, right now, we’re going to get him back. But we’re not going to do it by standing around and feeling bad about his situation. Let’s get to work.”

* * *

            It’d been a movement and a half that Luce had been staring at the boy in front of her.

            The skin he wore was not even the same skin he’d been taken away in, seven decaphoebs ago. He was eleven decaphoebs old, at the time. Eleven and barely getting acquainted with the world outside of his home, when word _somehow_ had gotten out that his mom had gone and joined up with the Obscurities, and the scientists making a living off of the black market on their tiny home planet got pissed off.

            Luce had sped home that quintant, away from the labs on the other side of the planet. It had taken half of the quintant to make that journey at top speeds, and it had been too late by then. She came back to a ransacked house and a kidnapped son she’d never see again. Or _thought_ she’d never see again.

            She hadn’t killed Stets. Somehow, by some _fucking miracle,_ Stets had survived, and let it slip that Luce had the Red Paladin, the very same one that Emperor Lotor had wanted to be sold off in the first place. A few of the slimebags she used to work with got into contact with her, and allowed her the knowledge that her son was still alive. She could have him back, on the condition that an exchange be made.

            One lab rat for another.

            Luce had hardly hesitated before agreeing, and sat idly on the couch of her home while a few scientists arrived in the middle of the day. She’d listened while they moved around upstairs, injecting the Red Paladin with some kind of drug meant to keep him asleep. She’d done nothing when they came back down, dragging his unconscious body into the elevator to the parking garage. She waited, and waited, and half a varga later, they came back, a different boy in tow.

            Luce recognized his eyes— _eye._ One of them was cloudy now, the skin around it scarred. That eye would be blind forever.

            Zinno had been a loud kid. Always laughing. Always moving. He got restless when he _had_ to be still, and he could never stop talking. There was always some story to tell with him.

            But the past movement and a half, he’d sat in the same spot at the kitchen table. Motionless. He hardly ate, and wouldn’t explain why.

            Luce knew.

            Whatever had been done to him over the last seven decaphoebs fucked him up for life.

            His one seeing eye was always hollow, always letting Luce know that he was someplace else entirely. This morning was the final straw. She couldn’t take this, couldn’t take seeing her broken boy staring at her, a constant reminder of what she’d lost, and a constant reminder of the fate she’d just sealed for the Red Paladin, a fucking _defender of the universe._

            Zinno was lost. Not a lost cause—Luce would still fight, no matter how futile it seemed, to help bring at least a piece or two of him back—but lost all the same.

            She couldn’t let the same happen to the Red Paladin. Especially not when there was a target on his back with the Emperor’s name on it. She could still fix this. Still right the wrong she had done.

            _He trusted me._

            Luce got up from the kitchen table, chair scraping the floor, and tried to seem nonchalant as she went upstairs to her office, to the computer sitting asleep on the desk. She woke it up, typed in her password as prompted, and set to work.

            The Obscurities had a job to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
> 
> Okay thanks had to get that out there. 
> 
> I feel so gross after writing Lotor's parts like, sorry you have to read those, I liked it better when he was in the arena slaughtering people, but we've gotta move the plot forward somehow, and past me was a little shit who decided this was the route to go.
> 
> ANYWAY Keith's back in the next chapter!! I don't know who else will be but I know Keith will be!! I've gotta go sleep now!!


	13. The One in Which Keith Refuses to Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pidge once called Keith a study in survival. He's out to prove it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA this would've been out sooner but school's a fucking _bitch_ like thanks, teachers, for assigning homework all at once, not like I need a life.
> 
> (Also my mental health went for a fuckin ROLLERCOASTER RIDE this week and my life FELL APART but I'm sewing it back together, don't worry, if there's one thing I can do it's make a kickass comeback)
> 
> ANYWAY like I said this chapter really should've been out a few days ago (like I've had this plotted for a while) and I just didn't have the time to sit and write, BUT HERE WE ARE, CHAPTER 13, LET'S GOOOO

Chapter 13

            Losing track of the days became easy. The scientists dictated when he was conscious and when he was not. The lighting in the room never changed, and the scientists never seemed to rotate out. Ursho still commanded everyone, and Cha’asti still corralled him and reminded him of their objectives whenever he got too far out of line. Wisbie still shocked Keith awake, still shocked him until he submitted to their questioning without a fight. Nissi, the sole Tarvinian, a glaring reminder of the people who’d betrayed the Paladins to the Empire, had betrayed Keith and Lance to the Emperor, prepared the substances that Keith got injected with, while he prayed to whatever higher powers were out there that each injection, no matter its purpose, failed.

            These four scientists were the highlights, the ones doing most of the talking. The others faded into the background, constantly moving in the corners of Keith’s vision, at the edges of the room. Always murmuring, never raising their voices. Faceless specters, here only to remind him that he couldn’t escape. Taking on four people in his condition would have been a stretch already. Taking on any more than that was simply impossible.

            Unless he’d woken up to a sim, or this was a nightmare. Then, he’d be able to pull off the impossible.

            So far, he didn’t _think_ he was in a sim or nightmare. A sense of _wrongness_ wasn’t setting his nerves on edge, like one usually did when he was hallucinating, so with those three states of consciousness (states he’d become far too acquainted with) ruled out, he could at least conclude he was in reality.

            …Probably.

            _My brain hurts._

            Another tell that he was most likely in reality—he had the chance to just stop and _think._ His dreams, the sims, his hallucinations—they all moved quickly, and forced Keith to _act,_ act on his impulses and the adrenaline shooting through his veins. Reality usually took longer, usually dragged out. Usually involved interrogations and electric shocks and needles. The occasional threat of death, whenever Ursho or Cha’asti brought up the _necessary data_ and how they were _almost done, if this little beast would just cooperate._

            Of course, those musings had stopped some time ago, around the same time that his states of consciousness had begun to bleed together. Had it been reality, when he’d heard Pidge screaming from some recording, while someone ordered her spine broken? What about the time he’d heard Shiro crying out for unidentified assailants to leave his team alone, to take him instead, to do _anything but that, please, I_ _’m begging._

            Keith couldn’t answer that question.

            At some point, it had all become _too much._ He couldn’t take seeing Lance’s face contorted with hatred as he plunged a knife into Keith’s chest, or blew his head apart with a gun; only to wake up to Hunk breaking down; and then tumble through darkness and land on top of a pile of dead bodies—the bodies of his team. He couldn’t take sprinting through an endless maze of hallways, only to stumble upon a door leading straight into a trap; or being _this close_ to escape, only for someone to snatch him back up at the last minute and knock him back out.

            Losing track of minutes, of hours, days, weeks ( _months? please, no_ ) became _easy_ when the passage of time was marked by his suffering, by his friends’ suffering. In the same way, his roaring fire endured bucket after bucket of water, until it was reduced to nothing but stubborn embers refusing to flicker out.

            _I_ _’m_ not _giving in,_ Keith thought then, fingers curling into fists at his side, _I_ _’m just biding my time._

            It was just that, after being here for some time, Keith had finally realized that his methods of berating his captors and (futilely) struggling to break free would get him nowhere.

            That was what he told himself, at least.

            The alternative was that the scientists had finally found some chink in his armor to exploit, and he was on his way to _breaking,_ and he wouldn’t have it.

            _I_ _’m not breaking. I haven’t broken._

            It didn’t matter what the scientists saw on the screens connected to Keith’s head, it didn’t matter what the results of the simulations said. The day he broke was the day he died, and so far, he was still alive and kicking.

            There’d been close calls, Keith would concede that much. Instances where his last nerve was dangerously frayed, where his aching fingers could hardly hang onto the cliffside, where the water closed in over his head and his lungs burned with the desire for oxygen.

            But he hadn’t given in.

            The rope stayed in one flimsy piece. His nails bled and his fingers sprained. He reached the surface with desperate kicks and a light head and numb limbs.

            _Not real. Not real. Not real._

            The malice in Lance’s eyes didn’t exist.

            Shiro’s screams were nothing more than a figment of his imagination.

            The sound of Pidge’s bones snapping was fake.

            Hunk’s hysterical crying hadn’t really been grating on his ears.

            Allura didn’t hate him.

            Every time he came to this realization, every time he muttered it to himself and tried to push and shove his way out of his own head, break back into reality, they’d bear down on him. Cutting with knives or swords or words, to see who could tear him into the most pieces.

            _Not real. Not real. Not real._

            Every one of his senses would be on fire with pain, white-hot and then _blinding,_ and eventually he’d be knocked out with the force of it, only to wake up, and the cycle to begin anew.

            _This is real,_ Keith told himself, inhaling and exhaling slowly, as silently as possible. _You_ _’re awake. You’re not stuck in your own head._

            The room. The scientists. The restraints. His body. His mind.

            _Real._

            This was the first wake-up in a while where he’d opened his eyes to reality, and not to another test of his strength and willpower, another test to determine where his loyalties lay, to determine which friend’s presence would break him the most.

            “Ah, Keith, you’re awake,” Ursho said, and broke the sense of…well, not _bliss,_ but whatever passed for it under these circumstances.

            Keith didn’t answer. He shifted his head until he was staring straight up at the ceiling, pointedly ignoring Ursho and the rest of the scientists. The lights above him threatened to blind him, and Keith squinted at them. Despite the harshness of the fluorescents, they were still more appealing to look at than the masks Ursho and the others wore.

            “This is going to be your last round of questioning,” Ursho said evenly, waiting to gauge Keith’s reaction.

            Keith stiffened—the motion was almost imperceptible, what with most of his limbs already locked in place. If Ursho picked up on it, he didn’t say anything. He could’ve been smiling behind that mask of his, and Keith was hit with the urge to punch through it and break it, but, _again,_ the circumstances prevented it.

            “We have a special guest joining us for your last round of questions,” Ursho went on. “Cha’asti, if we could get that transmission going…”

            _Final questioning. Guest. Transmission._

It didn’t take very long for Keith to piece things together: these people had what they wanted, and they were going to kill him after one last torture session. One last torture session that would be viewed by the person insistent upon making Keith’s life a living nightmare.

            “Establishing transmission to the Empire’s Central Command Base,” Cha’asti murmured.

            _This is not fucking happening._

            Keith shut his eyes, while Ursho called for Nissi to get some sort of serum prepared. A death serum, probably. Just one more injection that Keith wouldn’t be able to break away from.

            _Giving up so easily?_ a voice mocked him in the back of his head, one that sounded too much like Lotor. _You_ _’re weak. It was always a matter of time before you broke and bowed to me._

            _I_ _’m not giving up and I’m not breaking,_ Keith wanted to shout back, but wasn’t that exactly it?

            He couldn’t fight back. Not in his current situation. Not when he’d already tried.

            What else was there to do?

            The table underneath Keith began tilting, jarring him, pulling him away from his thoughts once more. The table tilted until it reached a 60-degree or so angle with the floor, putting Keith almost upright in front of a camera and screen. He sagged a bit; he was definitely thinner now than he was when he’d first been taken, as the only sustenance he received was given to him intravenously, and as such, it took a second or two longer than it should’ve for his forearms and calves to catch against his wrist and ankle restraints, while the one around his neck dug painfully into his chin. Keith strained against it, trying to push himself up with his heels.

            _“Not liking the accommodations? I don’t see why you haven’t requested a change sooner,”_ a voice said suddenly, and Keith’s head snapped up, toward the screen.

            Lotor lounged on some kind of throne, the corners of his mouth pulled up into an amused smirk. Keith bared his teeth and narrowed his eyes at the sight of the emperor.

            “What the fuck do y—”

            Keith cut himself off with his own screams. Between them, and the electricity crackling in his ears, Keith could barely make out Lotor laughing at him.

            “You won’t speak unless spoken to,” Ursho snapped, not nearly as _friendly_ as he’d been a few minutes ago.

            Keith stifled a groan in the wake of his electrocution, dragging his eyes toward the scientist. “He literally _spoke to me._ ”

            He winced on instinct, expecting Wisbie to crank the voltage up a notch and shock him again, but Ursho held up a hand, glaring at Keith all the while—at least, Keith thought so. Unless those things moving under the mask weren’t eyes, in which case, he’d been fooled this whole time. In any capacity, Ursho was unable to make an argument. Instead, he turned back toward the emperor, and gestured for him to speak.

            _“Hello, Keith. Been a long time, hasn’t it? And yet, that scar still stands out among the new ones.”_

            His nose scar. _That_ memory was still seared into Keith’s mind. He hadn’t exactly been _acting_ when he’d been thrashing and yelling and trying to make an escape from the knife, from Lotor’s gleefully sadistic smile as he dragged the blade across Keith’s face, from Lance’s arms as he held Keith in place.

* * *

             _“I’m sorry for these.”_

            _Lance traced a warm thumb over Keith_ _’s bruised eye, over the bridge of Keith’s nose, over the bumpy, raised skin of the scar. Keith’s face tingled in the wake of his touch, as he brought his own hand up, wrapping his fingers around Lance’s wrist. Lance wouldn’t meet his gaze—his eyes tried to focus in on their hands, instead._

_“Don’t be,” Keith replied softly._

            Light catching the blade of a knife.

            Lance’s arms tightening about Keith. His heart speeding up.

            Screaming.

            Blood, so much fucking _blood_ running down his face—

_“They just mean I did my job, and you’re safe,” Keith added._

 _Lance still wouldn_ _’t look at him. Keith could see the gears turning in his head, the guilt pecking away at bits of his soul. Keith’s eyes dropped to Lance’s pursed lips, and the thought crossed his mind to kiss him. But then Lance opened his mouth, and whispered, “Why do you keep doing this?”_

            _“Doing what?”_

_The question came out before Keith could stop it. He knew exactly what Lance meant._

Bloot and Rivvin.

            The hallways around Lotor’s ship.

            A cannon blast ricocheting off of the glass wall of Lotor’s training deck.

            Adrenaline propelling Keith all the way back to his room with a stolen sword, guards trying and failing to apprehend him.

            _“You keep letting yourself get hurt because of me,” Lance answered quietly, the flush of his face clear even in the darkness of the room. “I know you can be reckless sometimes, but…”_

            _Lance trailed off, the purse of his lips morphing into a frown. Keith hated it when Lance frowned—it never looked right on his face, no matter how often he seemed to frown as of late. To make matters worse, this time he was frowning because he felt guilty for reasons he shouldn_ _’t have._

            The swear of no regrets, not when it came to Lance.

            The arena, a broken blade in his hands, Lance’s voice in his ear.

            Pain exploding in his sides, on his palms, in his whole body as he hit the ground.

            The druids, and the minimal healing they’d given him.

            Rivvin. His room.

            Lance, alone. Not Jeremy, not a battle-weary Paladin. Just Lance.

            _“Because I care about you, dumbass. And you’ve been letting yourself get hurt, too. Just not always physically,” Keith responded, voice as soft as he could make it._

 _Lance_ _’s scars ran so much deeper than Keith liked. That much was evident whenever Lance woke up in a cold sweat, or screaming. Evident whenever Lotor’s name came up, or face came up, and Lance tensed._

 _Honestly, who the hell cared that there was a cut across the bridge of Keith_ _’s nose that mirrored Shiro’s? Who gave a shit about that when Lance’s scars kept him on his toes every waking moment and every unconscious moment?_

            Lance cares, _a little voice whispered._ Lance’ll always care.

I’ll just have to out-care him, then.

* * *

            Ursho brought Keith back to reality with a slap in the face.

            “Your emperor asked you a question,” Ursho spat.

            Keith blinked, blinked away the memory of Lance, of one of his last quiet moments with him before the mission to Tarvin. Of the moment they promised each other that they’d carry whatever they had back over to Earth, to see if it would work out. _To make it work out._

            _Stop it, don_ _’t think about him—_

            “What?” Keith asked.

            No hard edge. No irritation. Just straight-up confusion.

            Had he really been so deep into his thoughts that Lotor hadn’t even broken them up?

            _“Hmm,”_ Lotor said. _“I merely asked how you’ve been treated over the last few movements. You don’t exactly look like the same Paladin that left Tarvin Three, after all. I suppose you’re like Blue, in that aspect.”_

            “Don’t call him that,” Keith snapped, “and what the hell did you do to him?”

            He didn’t dare mention the fact that Lotor had at least given him a small estimate of how long he’d been in this lab.

            _A few weeks. Can_ _’t be more than three or four,_ Keith reasoned with himself. _Hopefully, it_ _’s even less than that._

            It had to be even less than that. There was no way that the team hadn’t found him in that timeframe, or even worse, hadn’t found _Lance._ It wouldn’t have taken a genius to figure out what happened to him, once the team found out that the Galra were on Tarvin Three. Everyone knew of Lotor’s obsession.

            _Why is he still with Lotor?_

            He was still with Lotor, right?

            Lotor probably would have been much angrier if Lance had been rescued. _Probably_. If he wasn’t bluffing. Was he bluffing?

            _“Nothing, really,”_ Lotor answered nonchalantly, pretending like he was staring at some far corner of the room. _“All you need to know is that he had no desire to leave me. So he hasn’t.”_

            _What? What the fuck do you mean he had no desire to leave?_

            Lotor read the question in Keith’s face, the genuine confusion. His smirk widened.

            _“What? Did you not know? You, over there—”_ Lotor gestured to someone off-screen, probably an officer _“—please play the broadcast from the last movement.”_

            The feed of Lotor gave way to a different one. Instead of sitting center, on a throne, Lotor stood to the right of the screen, while someone else stood next to him.

            _That_ _’s Lance. Holy fuck, that’s him._

            Keith expected hollowed eyes and cheekbones, bloody cuts and bruises, a prisoner’s uniform and chains. Instead, he got skin-tight clothes under a glittering cape; a bright, almost _glowing_ face; gel-hardened hair slicked back on his head; the signs of _health_ rather than malnourishment. And of course, he was staring at Lotor with the look of a dumbfounded lover.

            Keith’s heart should have been splintering at the fact that Lance was looking at the emperor the same way he looked at _him_ , but he’d spent a long time figuring out how to read Lance. The lion switch had brought them closer, had made them the other’s confidant, had laid the foundation for a relationship that’d only grown.

            _Something_ _’s not right._

            _…Aside from the obvious._

            For one, Lance hated hair gel. For as much product as he loved, he preferred his hair soft. Keith had studied it and touched it and listened to Lance ramble enough to know that. Number two, he’d spent long enough staring into Lance’s eyes to know when he wasn’t entirely there, when he was plotting something.

            Like right at that moment.

            _What are you doing?_

            _“Greetings, citizens of this glorious Empire,”_ Lotor began, and Lance’s attention went right to the camera, face flushing.

            Not the flush of a lover, almost embarrassed to be caught so deeply enamored with the object of their affections.

            The flush of someone embarrassed that they have to even be seen this way.

            Even the smile on his face was _too_ wide, _too_ sweet-looking. The smile Lance gave him before he said something Keith would know he wouldn’t want to hear. Things like _I_ _’m definitely fine_ and _I wasn_ _’t worried, psssh,_ and _hey, buddy, I_ _’m just going on a solo mission to the heart of the Empire, no big deal._

            _“I come to you all today with several announcements,”_ recording-Lotor continued. _“The first: I present to you, Jeremy Ortega—”_

            Keith tuned out the rest immediately, eyes widening, now completely locked onto Lance.

            _You didn_ _’t._

_No._

_Lance, why the_ fuck _would you do that?_

_…Wait, what’s he doing with his eyes—_

_Are you—_

_You_ are.

_You brilliant little shit._

            _You brilliant,_ fucking ridiculous _little shit._

            Keith missed the first couple letters, but picked up on the three long blinks that made up O, followed up by the long blink-short blink-long blink pattern for K.

            _And you_ _’re still a selfless asshole._

            Keith wondered, briefly, how many nightmares Lance’d had in the time since he’d been kidnapped. How many panic attacks. How many breakdowns. How many times was Keith _not there_ for him? How many times had Keith broken his secret promise to keep Lance safe, no matter what?

            _Patience. Focus. Morse code._

            Keith caught the rest of the letters. F. I. N. D. K. E.

            And on what Keith suspected would’ve been the letter I, alarms started blaring through the lab. The scientists all seemed to pause and look at each other, at a sudden loss for what to do, while the feed of Lotor’s broadcast went to static and then cut back to the present feed of Lotor.

            _“What’s going on?”_ the emperor demanded, veneer of smugness gone.

            “I don’t know,” Ursho answered.

            A distant boom shook the lab.

            “Is it the Paladins?” Nissi ventured.

            _“No,”_ Lotor snapped. _“I can assure you that the Paladins are_ quite _busy at the moment. Whoever it is, do_ not _let them take the Red Paladin. In fact_ _…my questions are irrelevant now. Kill him.”_

            Keith had no time to question what Lotor meant about the team. His focus instead jumped to Ursho, who called for Nissi to get the serum and _get it now,_ just as footsteps pounded down the hall. Just as bullets pinged against metal, and the door opened, and a group of humanoids flooded the room.

            Luce led the charge.

            She made a beeline for Keith, broken up only by Ursho and a few of the nameless scientists from around the room intervening. But the group of humanoids was seemingly endless—for every scientist that stepped up to fight, armed with syringes and small blades, there were two humanoids with guns, firing away.

            Keith’s attention was not on the carnage. It was on Lotor, rising from his chair, ordering officers to get ships prepared for—not the Bovona System.

            The Bolza System.

            Planet Ven.

            _Bolza-Ven._

 _This is why the team hasn_ _’t found me—_

Keith fell forward.

            _What the—_

_The restraints._

Someone caught Keith before he could faceplant and immediately began ushering him out of the room, barking orders for cover, barking orders for someone to arrange their getaway. It occurred to Keith that it was _Luce herself._

            _Didn_ _’t she betray me?_

He’d been in her house. And then he hadn’t.

            This planet’s economy was sustained mostly by a black market on top of a mountain.

            _Get away get away get away—_

            Keith’s legs wouldn’t work.

            Nor would most of his body.

            His head spun with the weight of gravity, after being back on his feet for the first time in weeks. His legs wobbled, trying to get used to functioning again after so much disuse. Then there was the matter of the fact that he was _exhausted_ and _hungry_. He wasn’t sure how long his system would sustain him before he collapsed.

            He didn’t have a choice but to stay with Luce.

            Especially considering that he didn’t even have a weapon.

            “I’m going to pick you up and carry you,” Luce said suddenly, and gave Keith no time to tell her _no, don_ _’t you dare,_ before she tossed him over her shoulder like he weighed nothing, and yelled for more cover.

            _Again with this._

            The last time someone had carried him like this, it’d been Shiro, and Keith hadn’t stayed conscious long enough to see the whole escape through. Then again, he’d trusted Shiro enough to let himself collapse. Pidge had been watching their backs. Hunk and Lance had been there. Allura and Coran had been just outside the atmosphere with the castleship.

            _I don_ _’t trust you._

The halls outside the room were even more maze-like than they’d been in Keith’s nightmares and sims and hallucinations. Luce navigated them with expertise, never once stopping to pause and consider where they were going. The few guards they passed down these hallways were all either dead or slumped over, unconscious.

            Keith did his best to ignore the blood on the walls and on the floor. To ignore the rush of relief he couldn’t help but feel at the sight. To ignore the little voice in his head, acknowledging that he would have been the one to end their lives if he was busting out on his own, because he couldn’t risk recapture, because recapture meant death, recapture meant never seeing the team again, recapture meant never seeing _Lance_ again—

            Luce stumbled to a stop outside of a door, so abruptly that Keith fell from her grasp. He barely managed to land on his feet, only for his legs to give out, for his body to crumple.

            _Stand up stand up stand the FUCK UP, KOGANE._

_THIS IS NOT THE TIME._

            Keith braced an arm against the wall for support while Luce typed away at some keypad next to the door, her work broken up only by a series of beeps, until something clicked, and the door opened.

            “Don’t touch me,” Keith snapped, when Luce reached for him again.

            Luce opened her mouth to say something, but shut it again and sighed, and took off running. “Better keep up!”

            Keith grit his teeth and followed suit, immediately regretting his decision—not like he’d voice that thought. His entire body was weak, and he was taken back, back to the desert, to coyotes and dehydration and a headache threatening to split his skull. He’d been sick with heat exhaustion for several days after that, and had done nothing but down water like it was air and lie around in the dark, in as little clothing as possible.

            That had been one of the bad days, too soon after word of the Kerberos mission’s fate reached Earth, too soon after he’d decked Iverson and gotten booted from the Garrison.

            _You can_ _’t go to that place again._

He could take care of himself once he was out of here—off of this planet, away from this lab, and away from Luce and the Obscurities.

            In order to _get_ out of here, he just had to stay on his feet, and stay between Luce in front of him and the Obscurities behind him.

            _Patience. Focus. Run._

            Luce led the group out into darkness—the air that greeted Keith was fresh, which meant for the first time since Luce had taken him in, he was outside.

            Keith’s eyes struggled to adjust to the dark, after constantly sitting under fluorescent lights. After a few minutes, he could make out the shapes of the trees and their oddly-colored leaves, of the pink-hued grass, and of the winding road stretching between. A winding road lined with ATVs, trucks, and motorbikes.

            Keith cut his eyes to Luce.

            She sprinted, too focused on getting to her own truck, where she probably would’ve brought Keith, to actually pay attention to whether or not he was following her. The Obscurities behind him, though, might’ve had a chance at catching him.

            _You won_ _’t know unless you try._

            His bullshit justification for too many things.

            _Can the speeder survive the dive off of this cliff?_

_Can you outrun a coyote?_

_Can you take on three Garrison personnel at once?_

_Can you get away with punching Iverson in the face?_

_Can you take on Zarkon by yourself?_

            Keith sucked in a breath, his lungs burning with the effort, his legs threatening to give out again at any time. His entire body tingled, his head spun, and the edges of his vision darkened.

            And then he broke formation.

            Shouts went up behind him as his feet slid over dirt and whatever other undergrowth was here, and several times, Keith used a tree to keep himself going, half-running, half-falling down the sloping forest floor toward the road. Somewhere behind him, Keith heard Luce shouting orders not to shoot him— _do not shoot the kid we just fucking rescued, are you kidding me—_ while several guns cocked behind him.

            _Go go go go go—_

            Keith’s feet hit this planet’s equivalent of asphalt, sending a jolt through him.

            _Brush it off, keep going._

            An ATV would be perfect to make a getaway through the woods, but that would have been so much more time-consuming of a route. Keith needed to get out of here, find an airstrip, and get off this planet. His eyes locked onto one of the motorbikes, one of the sleekest ones here.

            _Jackpot._

            Keith didn’t waste time throwing himself onto it when he arrived. For a brief second, his vision darkened completely, and the bike rocked beneath him.

            _Just fucking drive._

            It seemed that, in the favor of a fast rescue, whoever’d owned this bike left their ignition all ready to go. Keith punched it, and the bike revved to life beneath him. He clutched the handlebars, slammed his feet on the pedals, and he was off.

            The other vehicles roared to life as Keith tore down the road, but at that point, it didn’t matter.

            The wind whipped Keith’s hair back, reigniting some spark in his bones, in his blood, the vibrations of the bike keeping Keith anchored to the present.

            He knew this sensation like the back of his hand.

            These people had no chance of catching up with him.

            Despite the dizziness, despite the exhaustion eating away at him, despite the fact that he still had to find an airstrip and find a ship, Keith stood up on the pedals, pumped a fist, and whooped as he sped into through the night.

            _I_ _’m coming, Lance._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay LMAO so aNYWAY it's 1:20 AM and I have psych notes to finish and calc notes to take during study tomorrow wanna hear why they're not done (besides bc I worked on this)
> 
> I went to the Maker Faire in NYC today and our bus was late to come pick us up for home and then we kept hitting traffic and a bunch of my friends were there and we're all AP students and someone shouted "WHO'S PULLING AN ALL-NIGHTER TONIGHT" and we got this chorus of "ME" from all these kids trying to nap in the middle of a traffic jam it was such a beautiful moment of tragic solidarity between overworked students and also can you tell I'm not thinking straight I'm gonna spend tomorrow chugging coffee OKAY BYE I HAVE NO IDEA WHOSE POV THE NEXT CHAPTER IS BYEEEE


	14. The One in Which Lance Goes Deeper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance is caught in a game of "out-manipulate the manipulator," a game including questionable choices and the obligatory near-death experience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's 4 in the morning, and I have a lot of stuff I could've done, like the math homework I slacked off on all week (my teacher wasn't there and I have no idea what I'm doing even when she _is_ there...needless to say, I have a lot to catch up on when she collects all the homework on Monday), or the psych project that got pushed back twice and is now due Monday, or fill out the Common App, or fill out scholarship stuff...but no, here I am, writing Lance.  
>  If anyone wants other important life updates, I'll throw 'em in at the end. Or you can follow nerdyspaceace on Instagram, or @nerdyspxceace on Twitter.  
>  **TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER  
> **  
>  Dubcon kissing/Lancelot content, violence, sexual innuendos, a _lot of fucking violence/references to violence_ , and mild racism (in regards to the Galra).

Chapter 14

            True to his word, Lotor allowed Lance a little more freedom in the ten or so days following the broadcast. It wasn’t much, but it was more than being holed up in his room all day, so Lance would take it. He spent his waking hours mostly at Lotor’s side, being shown off around the base, as Lotor’s trophy partner. When he wasn’t at Lotor’s side, Lance was given a communication device (not unlike the one he’d used for his first mission here) and thrust into strategy meetings, taking over as leader while Lotor took care of highly-classified business—so classified that not even Lance was allowed to know about it.

            Seeing as Lance’s meetings mostly dealt with taking over other planets, he guessed that Lotor’s business dealt with Team Voltron and Keith, two topics Lotor’d been working hard to steer Lance away from. The less he knew, the better, apparently.

            _Think about that later,_ Lance thought to himself now, as he made his way toward one of the meeting rooms where strategizing sessions were held, hand entwined with Lotor’s.

            When Lance wasn’t sitting in his room and brainstorming ways off of this base, or conducting the strategy meetings, or listening to Lotor talk about useless nonsense Lance had no need to know, he spent time trying to convince and reassure Lotor that he was completely head-over-heels in love with him, as Jeremy.

            Too many dark corners.

            Too many times their lips slotted together and hands wandered.

            Painfully enough, it seemed to get easier each time he did it. The first few days had been riddled with dry-heaving, Lance on the brink of another breakdown, another anxiety attack, another panic attack. But he _couldn_ _’t_ break down—after each kiss, he endured another few hours with Lotor before being allowed back into his room, too exhausted to think anymore. He’d shower and force himself through his skincare routine and _crash,_ sometimes so hard that his sleep was dreamless.

            Then he’d wake up and do it all over again, the act slowly becoming second nature.

            Like right now.

            “I will see you within the next few vargas, my love,” Lotor said, turning to face Lance as they stopped right outside of the meeting room door.

            Lance smiled up at him and let go of his hand, turning away, toward the door. He expected the hand that snaked around his waist and yanked him back, expected Lotor’s lips against his, expected the lingering touch before they broke apart.

            Not a wistful touch, like _I_ _’ll see you again soon, stay safe._ More like _remember who you belong to. I expect to see you when you are through with your duties._

            The difference between one final kiss before a mission gone wrong, not long enough, not deep enough, and just another meaningless press of lips, scripted and carried out with feigned desperation.

            _Not now, Jeremy,_ Lance reminded himself, as Lotor started down the hall, and Lance entered the room before him.

            As with the other meetings of the last week, the other officers were already gathered, quietly gossiping, casting either bored or impatient looks at the door. Only a handful of them straightened as Lance entered—a number that grew less and less each passing day. Lance came off to them as harmless. Lotor didn’t allow any of the officers to carry a weapon during these meetings, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t fight with fists. And with their bulk, compared to Lance’s skinniness, well…he didn’t exactly read as a threat.

            _Fine by me,_ Lance had thought resignedly, the first few days in.

            Let them think him weak. It just meant that the target on his back shrank. These others would rather gloss him over and tear each other apart than waste resources going after him.

            “What’re the latest reports?” Lance didn’t so much ask as demand, sliding into Authoritative Jeremy—the Jeremy reserved for anyone he perceived as beneath him, which was to say, anyone on this ship who wasn’t Lotor. It was supposed to be intimidating, but the officers in the room probably mocked him behind his back for it.

            “Nizure fell yesterquintant,” one of the officers said, and Lance’s face remained placid, even as his stomach knotted.

            It was the fourth planet that’d fallen under his strategies. He tried his best, to leave chinks in the armor that he knew the team could exploit, but somehow—probably between his absence, and Keith’s, and whatever else was happening—the team missed these openings. Or maybe they hadn’t shown up at all. Lance was never told much, beyond that a new planet was being taken over. He assumed, each time, that Voltron was probably going to get involved—why _else_ would Lotor put him on the strategy council, if not to play him against his own team?

            “And what of Denika?” Lance pressed.

            Yesterday’s meeting had concerned two planets, both brimming brilliant peoples who’d long been participating in the fight against the Galra. In reading the reports on each planet, a thought had crossed Lance’s mind, that Team Voltron should’ve been making an alliance with these people. They each had massive, powerful armies; a drive to bring the Empire to an end; seemingly benevolent rulers.

            “Drove out our forces on their own,” another officer called lazily. “You sent too few ships. Would’ve been so easy to take otherwise.”

            “Really now?” Lance asked, pressing his palms against the table he stood at the head of. He leaned forward, narrowing his eyes at the officer. “I didn’t see _you_ offering a better solution.”

            “And why would my words have mattered?” the officer shot back, sitting up straighter. “Everyone knows that their words are meaningless in the face of Lotor’s pet’s ideas.”

            The hushed conversations in the background all came to a halt, each officer shifting to look at their rebellious comrade.

            Lance set his jaw, wishing for a fraction of a second that he had a weapon right now, to show this officer who was in charge here. _Jeremy talking, that_ _’s all Jeremy—you_ are _Jeremy._

            “I am no _pet,_ ” Lance said, voice hard. “It would do you well to show respect to the Emperor’s second-in-command.”

            The officer threw his head back and laughed. A few of the other officers sitting around them shifted uncomfortably, one even inching their chair away.

            “ _Second-in-command?_ You’re no more than a consort—and not even that! I don’t recall any sort of union between you and our _fearless leader._ What right do you have to claim that title from people who have been here since the very beginning? You’re not even _Galra,_ ” the officer said.

            “Neither’s the Emperor, that half-breed runt. Makes sense he’d choose someone like _him_ to warm his bed,” another officer called, emboldened by the other’s outburst.

            The first drops of adrenaline entered Lance’s bloodstream—he felt the shift, felt the first pricks of iciness beneath his skin, the spark of flame in other places.

            “Would you like to tell that to the Emperor himself, then?” Lance asked, raising his eyebrows.

            “I can send him a message in _other_ ways,” the officer said, standing up, kicking his chair back.

            The officer crossed to the front of the room in just a few strides, none of the others making an effort to stop them. Lance straightened back out to full height and stared up at this officer— _why are the Galra so tall, this isn_ _’t helping_ —as they stared him down.

            “Return to your seat at once,” Lance commanded, “and remember who you’re—”

            Lance choked on his last few words as the officer reached out and slammed Lance back against the wall, hand wrapped all the way around his neck, threatening to crush his windpipe. Aside from being tall, the Galra were also _really fucking strong;_ this one held Lance up high enough that his feet didn’t even touch the floor, and he was holding him with _just one hand_.

            “Bivek,” someone else in the room warned, but the officer pinning Lance to the wall—Bivek, apparently—paid them no mind.

            “ _You_ _’ll_ remember who _you_ _’re_ speaking to, Earthling,” Bivek hissed. “I have a right mind to kill you _right now._ ”

            Bivek’s fingers curled tighter around Lance’s throat, his other hand curling into a fist, pulled back and poised to swing.

            “S-Stop,” Lance rasped, clawing at Bivek’s arm.

            If he got hurt here, Lotor would revoke every freedom he’d been given. Lance would be stuck in his room again, to pass the hours by sleeping or freaking out, completely and utterly _useless—_

            _Fight back._

 _Prove you_ _’re worthy._

            _You_ _’re a Paladin, dammit._

            Lance grunted and kicked, using his long legs to his advantage as his first kick struck home, and his second kick landed against Bivek’s ribcage. Bivek snarled and recoiled, dropping Lance. None of the other officers in the room made a move to stop Lance or Bivek, as Bivek surged forward again, while Lance kicked his leg high in the air, taking no time to savor the feeling of air back in his lungs.

            His kick connected with Bivek’s head, the officer stumbling back again. Lance stepped backwards, widening the distance between himself and Bivek as the officer groaned, rubbing the spot where Lance’s foot landed. He was taken back, back several weeks, back to the training deck, back to Keith and his arms around Lance’s neck and the drive to learn to fight without his bayard, back to hours studying Keith’s form to help him improve, back—

            _Stop it._

_You hate him._

_That was Lance. You are Jeremy._

            “Anyone else?” Lance challenged, when Bivek stood again, grumbling, and backed away from Lance.

            Nobody breathed a word, nobody stepped forward. Nobody dared to challenge the Earthling who’d taken down Bivek in just a matter of seconds.

            _Not that big a feat,_ Lance couldn’t help but think. _He was too focused on me to pay attention to anything else. He thought I was too weak to take him on._

            “I’ll be reporting this incident to Lotor,” Lance said, returning his attention to the meeting at large.

            Or at least, pretending to.

            In his periphery, he watched Bivek, fidgeting with something on his suit of thin armor. The thought crossed Lance’s mind to turn on his communicator feed now, and let Lotor know exactly what was happening in this meeting, but _again—_ if Lotor perceived these strategy meetings as any threat to Lance, he would terminate Lance’s position and leave him locked in that room again, and _he was not going back there._

            “Now,” Lance said, and just as the word left his mouth, just as Bivek believed him occupied with his task, the officer rushed him, a blade catching the purple light of the room and glinting.

            Lance may have been allowed out of his room, may have been allowed to conduct these meetings, but he still hadn’t been given a weapon or suit of armor to defend himself with. He’d tried, the first day after the broadcast, to put the Paladin suit on underneath his clothes, but the bulky shoulder pads would’ve given him away. He resigned himself to the thin clothes of his wardrobe, and for these meetings he usually donned a cape or robe.

            Today it’d been a cape.

            Bivek knew—could plainly _see—_ Lance carried no weapon.

            Lance dodged right as Bivek swiped. His shoulder hit the wall and he rolled with it, until he and Bivek stood on opposite sides of the table from where they started—Bivek slightly hunched over, momentum having thrown him off.

            Lance turned around, to face Bivek again, only for chairs to scrape the floor, as other officers suddenly joined the scuffle. A few bore down on Lance, attacking his arms to pin them back, while others aided Bivek, drawing small daggers of their own. Lance thrashed in the grips of his subordinates-turned-captors—

            _A grunt and then the heat at his back vanished, and Lance risked the glance behind him to see a soldier on Keith, pinning him to the floor, stealing his bayard, while Keith struggled to move, to get up and fight back. Panic bubbled in Lance_ _’s chest, shot through his veins, threatened to fog his brain—he couldn’t lose Keith. Not now. Not ever._

_Lance himself grimaced as the soldier kicked Keith in the head. For a moment, one terrifying moment, Keith seemed to space out, vision unfocusing—_

_“Keith!” Lance shouted, and that was the opening the soldiers needed. Lance was too distracted with the need to get to the Red Paladin, instead of watching his_ own _back._

 _Someone slashed at him, missing but ruining Lance_ _’s balance as he dodged, careening right into another soldier. One of them smacked him with the butt of their rifle, and Lance saw nothing but stars. Someone else came up in front of him and ripped his bayard away, and then used it to smack him in the face, the visor on his helmet spiderwebbing with cracks._

 _With Lance dazed, one of the soldiers wrenched his arms behind him, painfully twisting his shoulder, eliciting a whimper. Then they shoved him forward, legs never quite reaching working capacity—his brain seemed to be at a disconnect with him, and he wasn_ _’t exactly trying to make them work. He’d caught sight of Keith, kneeling on the left side of a podium, and then Keith left his field of vision, as one of the soldiers kicked Lance’s legs out from beneath him, and he crashed to his knees on the right side._

_He grunted as the shock of hitting the ground ran through his system. Then he lifted his eyes to the front of the room, where Lotor stepped out from behind the desk, and came around until he stood in front of the podium, looking between Lance and Keith, a trapper marveling at his catch._

_“Isn’t this quaint?”_

            A pain lancing through his cheek brought Lance back to reality, eyes focusing in on Bivek, standing before Lance, grinning at the spot of blood on the tip of his dagger.

            “So, how loudly will we have to make you scream before Lo-tool gets jealous and comes running?” Bivek taunted.

            Oh, good.

            His final moments would be drawn-out and painful.

            Lance would be lying if he said he hadn’t imagined a death like that at the hands of the Galra, but he usually didn’t picture it quite in this way. He imagined himself as _Lance,_ as the Blue Paladin, cheeky and defiant to the very end, swearing up and down he’d never give up his team. He’d usually be making such a proclamation to Zarkon, or Lotor, or any of their higher-ranking commanders in an interrogation room. Not in a strategy room, surrounded by officers with ranks beneath him—beneath _Emperor Lotor_ _’s second-in-command._

            “Unhand me _at once,_ ” Lance ordered.

            It was hard to sound threatening in a position like this.

            “Emperor Lotor will have you all killed for this,” Lance went on. “I’ve heard of what happened to the Marmorites he discovered in his ranks. He’ll slaughter you all no less mercilessly than he did them if you don’t release me!”

            “Can Earthlings still scream with their tongue cut out?” Bivek mused, running a finger along the blade of his knife, apparently ignoring Lance. He lifted his eyes to Lance’s mouth, smirk widening. “Care to find out, Jeremy Ortega?”

            Even better.

            They didn’t even realize he was a liar.

            They would actually do this to someone they believed was truly on their side.

            Good to know.

            Lance flinched as Bivek brought the tip of the knife to his mouth, and reached up a second hand to pry his mouth open, just as the door to the room opened again, and Lotor stormed in.

            “Change in plans! I need all— _what in the name of Gal is going on?!_ ”

            Lotor’s eyes were wide as he took in the sight—several officers holding Lance back; Lance, with a thin line of blood running down his face; Bivek, knife pressed against Lance’s mouth; the other officers in the room making no move to stop Bivek. The officers holding Lance dropped him as soon as Lotor drew his sword from the sheath at his side. Lance stumbled, and Lotor swooped in, shoving Bivek aside.

            “My love,” Lotor said, arms around Lance at once—Lance was careful to watch the sword Lotor still clutched. “Are you hurt?”

            _They were gonna kill me, there_ _’s literally a cut on my face,_ Lance thought as he answered, “No, sweetheart.”

            Lotor didn’t let go of Lance, arm adjusting itself and coming to rest around his waist, as he pointed his sword at Bivek.

            Lance blinked—Lotor’s hair was black and much shorter, and his skin wasn’t purple, but instead—Lance blinked again—

            _Stop it stop it stop it._

            “You all seek to assassinate my lover, do you?” Lotor demanded, eyes never leaving Bivek. “And I suppose next you would’ve come after me?”

            “Still calling him your lover?” Bivek asked. “There’s been no sort of union, has there? He has no right to just enter our ranks at the very top, with no official titles, no _Galran blood_ —”

            Bivek cut himself off with a short gasp. He peered down at his gut, at the blade suddenly embedded there.

            “Any other remarks?” Lotor sneered, yanking the blade out, allowing Bivek to double over, collapsing to his knees. Bivek wrapped his arms around the injury and still found it within himself to smirk up at Lotor.

            “None, half-breed.”

            Lance looked away as Lotor’s face contorted, enraged, and he slashed out with the blade once, twice, again and again until Lance heard a wet _thunk._

            Nobody had stopped him.

            Nobody had stepped in to save Bivek.

            Bivek hadn’t fought back.

            Lance couldn’t bring himself to even take a peek at the severed head on the ground, at the body slumped over. Lance zeroed in one some spot on the ceiling, while Lotor sheathed his blade, and barked at the other officers still standing around, mouths agape, “You all are next!”

            Lotor stormed out of the room, arm tightening around Lance’s waist as he pulled him along. The door shut behind them, and Lotor punched in some sort of code on the keypad outside of the door, effectively locking it, trapping the officers inside.

            “I’ve got much to deal with. Hurry along now, my love,” Lotor said, as Lance struggled to match his strides.

            “Where are we going?” Lance asked, forcing the panic away from his voice.

            “To the druids, to get you healed up,” Lotor answered.

            No. _What if they get into my head—what if they find out what I_ _’m doing? They’ll tell Lotor. He’ll wipe my mind, and then…_

            Too many potential consequences for Lance to think on.

            He dug his heels into the ground as he halted, bringing Lotor to a stop, as well.

            “Jer—”

            “I don’t need to see the druids,” Lance interrupted. “It’s just this cut. It’ll heal fine on its own.”

            Lance didn’t even consider the potential bruises on his neck, currently hidden by the collar of his shirt, which crawled up his skin and came to rest at the base of his head. He’d have to examine them later.

            Lotor frowned, and tilted his head as he studied Lance.

            _So. The head tilt isn_ _’t just an intimidation tactic,_ Lance noted. _It_ _’s just a really obnoxious quirk._

            “Well,” Lotor said, “then I’ll just be bringing you back to your room. Clearly I overestimated how safe you’d be aboard this ship—”

            “Please,” Lance interrupted again, “don’t bring me back there. It’s so _lonely._ ”

            The longer Lance was left alone with his thoughts, the more breakdowns he had, the more he questioned every aspect of _everything,_ the more exhausted he became from overthinking, _stop it stop it would you please just focus on the task at hand, Jeremy._

            “My love, it’s not safe—”

            “I _would have_ been safe if I’d been granted armor or a weapon to defend myself with,” Lance cut in. “I survived my time with the Voltron Paladins—”

            “You nearly died because of the Red One,” Lotor snapped, taking a step forward, while Lance stepped back.

            _Shit shit shit calm him down—_

            “But I didn’t, because you saved me,” Lance said, fighting to keep an even voice. “So save me again now. Let me defend myself. Do you really think me so weak?”

            _Take the opening. Take control._

            Lance surged forward while Lotor was too busy floundering over what to say, because Lance _knew._ Lotor saw him as the weakest link of Team Voltron, easily manipulated and exploited for his own gain. Even as Jeremy, even living the lies fed to him, Lotor saw nothing more than a sheep—demure, led on, in need of protecting whenever the wolves came out to play.

            _I_ am _the wolf._

            It took Lotor a few seconds to register Lance’s lips against his, one of Lance’s hands on the back of his head, fingers knotting in his hair, and the other on his chest. Then he slid his arms around Lance’s waist and yanked him closer, and didn’t let go, even when Lance broke the kiss for air.

            “I am _not weak,_ ” Lance whispered. “What else could there possibly be to prove that to you?”

            Lance regretted his words the second they left his mouth.

            “The others believe our love is not genuine,” Lotor said. “If we were to be wedded—”

            “I don’t care what the others say,” Lance said. “ _You_ are the ruler of this empire. What your subordinates say and do because of their petty beliefs shouldn’t faze you.”

            “I myself, even aside from the influence of…unworthy officers…would still like to be wedded,” Lotor said, voice growing softer.

            _He_ _’s a manipulator,_ Lance thought. _Don_ _’t fall for it. Whatever you do._

“Marry me,” Lotor said, “and I will provide you with whatever you wish, and you will stand at my side as an equal, in the eyes of all.”

            Lance’s heart sped up, and he wondered if Lotor could feel it, when they were this close. His face flushed, and Lotor’s tentative smile widened.

            _If we get married, but I claim that I wasn_ _’t in my right mind when it happened, will it still be legally binding? He thinks I’m completely out of it, as it is._

            Lance bit his lip and looked down, pretending to be in lovesick thought, and spoke up when he finally raised his eyes again: “I will. But one condition must be met first.”

            “Anything, my love.”

            It would’ve been easy, to ask for armor or a weapon right here, right now. To ask to be let out of his room to wander on his own, so he could find the lions and take them back, or hijack a pod and escape. But those were simple things. Things that could have been handed over right away. For all Lance knew, Lotor could’ve given those things to him within the next few hours and then demanded a secret ceremony right afterward.

            _This_ answer would buy him time.

            “The corpse of the Red Paladin,” Lance said, and watched Lotor’s mask slip, for a fraction of a second, into sheer _panic._ “You say you killed him. If he hurt me, as much as you say he did, then I want my own way with him. I want to humiliate him in death. And I want the other Paladins of Voltron to watch, and remember their atrocities.”

            _Where the fuck did that come from?_

            _I need sleep, I need out—_

 _Shut up, voices, just_ shut the fuck up _. I_ _’m busy._

            “He was killed on a ship that wasn’t my own, dearest,” Lotor said. “I’m afraid his body was taken back by the other Paladins. I left him to rot—I didn’t think it necessary to take the corpse back. By now, the other Paladins have likely paid their respects and gotten rid of it.”

            _Liar, liar, pantalones en el fuego,_ Lance thought sarcastically.

            “I kept the armor,” Lotor continued, “and stole the Red Lion, but the body of the Red Paladin is gone. I didn’t want his face to haunt you.”

            _Too late for that._

            Lance opened his mouth to respond, when another officer came flying down the corridor.

            “Emperor Lotor, some of our operatives have reconnected with Planet Ven—the Obscurities have lost the Red Paladin. You’re needed in the situation room at once.”

            Lotor froze.

            _Fuck._ There was no way this was going to end well. Lance couldn’t just avoid the fact that Keith was, in fact, very much alive, something that now _Jeremy_ knew just as much as Lance did.

            “The Red Paladin is _alive?_ ” Lance asked, stepping back, trying to rip himself away from Lotor. “B-But—”

            “My love,” Lotor cut, desperation seeping through the cracks in his voice. “I—yes, he’s alive.”

            “You lied to me,” Lance said. “You’ve been lying for _movements!_ Why? Why would you do such a thing to someone you claim to love?”

            _Twist the knife. Keep control. You are_ not _getting sent to the druids because someone couldn_ _’t keep their mouth shut._

            “I wanted to protect you—”

            “Because you thought I was weak!” Lance interrupted, voice rising to a shout. “I am _not_ weak, Lotor. And I will not marry you until I have what I want: the Red Paladin, brought to _me._ Allow me to have my way with him, and fight my own battles, and _then_ I will join you.”

            Lance stared Lotor down, daring him to challenge him.

            Something tickled the back of his mind, a sense of unease that wasn’t his own—something akin to a plank of wood on live embers, the moment before it caught.

            _“He’s going to send his forces after Keith. Is that really what you want?”_ Red whispered desperately, but it was too late for Lance to take it back, too late for him to regret anything else.

            “…As you wish, my love,” Lotor said. “Come with me, then. We’ll plan, _together,_ a way to capture him once and for all.”

            _I know what I_ _’m doing, Red,_ Lance thought back at the lion. _I_ _’ve got everything under control._

            Lance let Lotor place a hand on the small of his back, guiding him along, the two of them trailing the officer who’d come to Lotor, who’d stayed and witnessed Lance’s outburst. And in the back of Lance’s mind, the threads of a new plan began to weave together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo so writing Lancelot??? I still hate it??????? Also this was _not_ the intended direction of the chapter, but that fucking officer just ran onto the page, all by himself like "YO LET ME SHIFT THE PLOT A LITTLE FOR YA" so yeah, that happened. 
> 
> Other life updates: my emotional state was a lot better this week, ummm my ex-best friend was sorta talking trash at the beginning of the week about me, to one of my other friends, which I didn't much appreciate but what can ya do. 
> 
> OH ALSO I STARTED ANOTHER FANFIC SOMEONE PLEASE STOP ME  
> It's a chatfic and the only reason I posted it was because on the first day of school, I wrote a chatfic during class, and then it started...becoming a habit...to write fanfic when I'm bored at school...so I started posting it...it's sorta got plot...  
> GO READ HERE: [squad up](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12199533/chapters/27702090)
> 
> Okay so I don't know who the next chapter is gonna focus on, I'm thinking Keith since I know where he needs to go, but it could end up being Team Voltron, so I dunno ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ expect one of those two I guess, SEE YA THEN


	15. The One in Which Keith Can't Catch a Damn Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith's really not having a good day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _if this chapter seems incoherent it's definitely because keith is sick as hell_ , my diseased self whispers as i grab my 247th tissue and blow my nose to the point my nose is chapped.
> 
> hi i'm sick
> 
> i usually do most of my writing on the weekend (as i put off all my monday homework, which, in this case, is still calc, fuck calc), because i'm so busy during the week, but i've been sick all weekend, and yesterday i couldn't really breathe my nose was so clogged, and it was just uncomfortable to sit in one spot??? like i need to move to get air circulating in my face and so yesterday wasn't a good day to write, like this could've been up this morning but here we are at 11:05 PM
> 
> ANYWAY **keith pukes no less than three times this chapter but that's about the only trigger warning i've got, there are no graphic descriptions it's basically just "keith is puking again look at that"**
> 
> HAVE FUN READING

Chapter 15

            Keith pulled the bike off to the side of the road and cut the engine, staggering down from the seat and landing on wobbly legs, before doubling over in the dirt at the edge of the road and retching. When he was finished, he dragged an arm across his mouth and leaned against a tree, sucking all the air that he could back into his lungs. His ears rang with the sudden silence, after being filled with the roar of the motorbike engine for the last hour that he’d spent weaving through the back roads of this planet, in a successful effort to lose Luce and the Obscurities.

            There had been a number of times he swerved too hard and sent his head spinning, or his vision had gone dark on him and left him scrambling to recover before he could crash or drive off of a cliffside. The adrenaline rush, the euphoria at finally being free—they’d worn off. Somewhere on one of those roads, Keith’s drive had vanished, and his speeding down the road had become more out of necessity than anything.

            _You can_ _’t pass out with the Obscurities right behind you,_ he’d told himself. _Keep going. You can rest when you lose them._

            Well, he’d lost them.

            Alone, with nothing better to do, Keith took stock of his situation.

            He was exhausted—that much was obvious. Intravenous food and fluid could only sustain a person for so long, and between the sweat sticking to the back of his neck, and the contents of his stomach he’d just expelled…he’d need to eat soon, and find some way to hydrate himself. If he went long enough without doing either, he’d collapse and never get back up, and he didn’t intend on dying out in the middle of nowhere, because _fuck that._

            Keith held onto that thought as he stretched his arms out in front of him, muscles burning, back popping.

            His arms were discolored—in true light, no matter how dim, he could finally see it. The scientists had ripped away much of the sleeves of his jumpsuit, as well as the collar crawling up his neck. A few black strips still desperately clung onto purple-yellow-pink-black-red-blue- _angry_ skin, bruised and burned and raw and vaguely tingling from being wind-whipped, from being in fresh air after sitting in that sterile lab for so long. He could see faint white lines tracing up and down his arms, a reminder of every electric shock that’d rocked him down to his bones.

            Keith imagined his face appeared similar—it was certainly just as painful, wherever his heat-damaged hair brushed flesh.       He wondered if a stay in the cryopods would change his skin back to normal, or if some of these marks were permanent, like his scars. At the thought of his scar, Keith reached a hand up to touch it, wincing as he confirmed that _yes,_ his face was tender, too.

            Without the adrenaline propelling him, getting back on that bike and finding an airstrip, and then stealing a ship, was going to _hurt like a motherfucker._ He should’ve been using this time to rest as much as he could—there really wasn’t much else to take stock of, aside from the trees, still seeming to stretch endlessly in every direction, broken up only by the twisting road. As far as he was concerned, he was totally alone—he could no longer hear the distant rumble of the other vehicles the Obscurities had been driving.

            Yet, he couldn’t make himself rest. Not mentally.

            While physically, he had nothing better to do than sit against this tree and give a break to his aching body, his mind raced, running through everything he’d been able to gather while he was in the lab. Keith tried to slam the brakes on it all, so he could analyze everything piece by piece, but his brain refused, and everything zipped by in jagged fragments.

            Several weeks he’d been in that lab. The broadcast was a week old. Lotor knew where he was. Lotor had Lance. Lance wasn’t Lance. Lance was Jeremy. Lance was lying. Lance Lance Lance _Lance—_

            Keith’s chest tightened.

            Somehow, Lance had fallen back into the role of Jeremy Ortega, second-in-command and lover of Emperor Lotor. The question of _how_ that came to be burned at the front of Keith’s mind. Had Lance done it himself? Had he been threatened by Lotor and given a choice? Or had Lotor forced him into the role? Did Lotor know that Lance was faking everything?

            _What have you gotten yourself into?_

Keith pictured Lance, standing before him, hands on hips, skeptical eyebrows raised, uttering the words, _I could ask you the same question._

            _A mess,_ Keith wanted to tell Imaginary Lance. _We_ _’re both in a fucking mess. I_ am _a fucking mess._

            Imaginary Lance sat down next to Keith at the base of the tree, intertwining fingers, leaning his head on Keith’s shoulder.

            _I_ _’m a mess, too,_ Imaginary Lance whispered. _But it_ _’s okay. We can be messes together._

            The first of the tears burned Keith’s eyes, as Imaginary Lance dissipated, fading away into nothing. Keith shut his eyes and tried to focus in on his breathing— _inhale, not real, exhale, not real, inhale, not real, exhale, not real_ —while the sky grew lighter around him. After some amount of time, when his breaths slowed to normal, when singular tears tracked their way down his cheeks, and the burning subsided, Keith found himself drifting off, the world growing softer and quieter, until it was gone.

* * *

            Keith jerked awake, and barely made it to his knees before retching in the grass at his side.

            By now, this planet’s sun shone brightly in the center of the sky, indicating that Keith had slept for far too long, alone and vulnerable. His bike remained on the roadside in front of him, untouched…hopefully.

            Keith rolled back against the tree again when he was done vomiting, groaning as pain threatened to split his skull open. He sniffled—or tried to, finding his nose too clogged to do even that.

            “Great,” Keith tried to mutter sarcastically, but it came out as _gre-hey-hey-hate_ as he broke out into a coughing fit.

            Leave it to a simple nap to leave him feeling completely and utterly like _shit,_ even more so than he had when he’d fallen asleep.

            _No time to think about it. You_ _’ve gotta get moving._

            Keith pressed his back against the tree, as well as one arm, and painstakingly staggered to his feet. His entire body protested, aching limbs threatening to give out and send him crashing back to the ground.

            _Fucking space disease._

            Being sick and alone on Earth had been one matter—he knew Earth diseases and knew how to treat them (or, power through them and hope for the best). Space diseases were another thing entirely, and Keith had to stop and contemplate whether this was something he’d contracted on his own, after being thrown around like a rag doll and experimented upon as a lab rat, or if this was the effect of something done to him in the lab.

            _Doesn_ _’t matter. I’m sick either way._

            Keith debated whether or not to get going. On the one hand, he’d probably collapse after any more intense physical exertion, such as the kind required to ride a motorbike at breakneck speeds on an unfamiliar planet in search of a way off. On the other hand, if he waited around, someone would eventually stumble upon him, and he’d end up recaptured, and then he’d probably die.

            Unless Lotor switched up again.

            _Let_ _’s go, Kogane._

            Keith started toward the bike, freezing as something rumbled in the distance. He peered through the tree canopy overhead as the winds picked up, heart nearly stopping altogether when he caught the ships making a slow procession in the sky. The purple lights marked them, unmistakably, as Galra.

            “Shit,” Keith muttered, blood turning cold as he moved more quickly toward the bike.

            If Galra ships were here, and here this quickly— _but how long ago did I escape?_ —then something was wrong. Horribly, _horribly_ wrong.

            Part of Keith itched to ditch the bike and take off through the woods on foot, sticking close to the trees and shadows. The other part of Keith knew that his best chance of getting away rested with the motorbike—maybe he could find an airstrip and swipe a ship before the Galra found him.

            And, if it happened that he was captured, well…he’d be brought to Lotor.

            And wherever Lotor was, there was Lance.

            _Get recaptured._

            The thought entered Keith’s mind before he could stop it. Getting recaptured would get him onto a ship. As long as he stayed conscious, he could hijack the ship, get into contact with the team, and then gun it for Central Command to rescue Lance.

            That whole _as long as he stayed conscious_ part was the one caveat he had with his plan. The Galra had a tendency to knock him out when they were dealing with him, and seeing as he didn’t have any armor, save for his tattered jumpsuit, and he was sick as hell, he his odds of staying conscious and being able to fight back and take control of a whole ship looked dismal at best.

            There was also the matter of him having gotten away from the Galra on several occasions before—all within the last month or so. They likely wouldn’t take any chances with him this time—he imagined extra bindings, extra security, less hesitation to hurt him.

            Keith stumbled as something boomed in the distance, the ground trembling beneath his feet, and once he recovered, he was _sprinting_ , pulling the bike onto the road, swinging one leg over the side, and taking off, pointedly ignoring the dull throbbing in the side of his head.

            _Whatever happens, happens,_ Keith told himself. Whether he was captured or he made it to an airstrip, by the end of the day, he wouldn’t be on this planet anymore.

* * *

            The first shot came at Keith after ten minutes and nailed the tire of the bike, sending it skidding, careening off the road. Keith threw himself to the ground as the bike collided with a tree, instantly regretting his decision as pain flared up in his leg, where he’d come down too hard.

            The second shot came down an inch to the left of his ankle.

            Keith scrambled to his feet, stumbled a few steps, and was off running again, and the third shot landed where his chest had been just moments before.

            _Are they trying to kill me?_

            Did Lotor send troops here with the sole purpose of hunting him down and killing him? Would he waste that much manpower for one person?

            _Yes._ He’d done as much to hunt down Lance.

            Keith ducked underneath a low-hanging tree branch and zig-zagged through a denser part of the woods, feet nearly catching several times on gnarled roots while the soldiers behind him—growing in number, judging by the increasing amount of shouting—did their best to weave after him, their own hoverbikes abandoned on the roadside.

            He risked a glance over his shoulder at them. In better shape than he was, the soldiers were quickly closing the gap of Keith’s head start.

            “Gotcha!”

            Keith whipped his head back around just in time to collide with another group of soldiers, who’d been converging on him from the sides.

            _Fuck, I should_ _’ve seen them—_

            A soldier’s fist cracked along Keith’s jaw, and Keith fell to the ground, hands flying to cup his face. The soldier’s touch _burned,_ and his knee-jerk reaction to probe the injury only made it worse.

            _No time get up you have to go—_

            Two other soldiers grabbed Keith by the arms, and Keith fought back the cry that bubbled up in his throat.

            “ _This_ is the one that kept getting away?” one of the other soldiers in the group—a group that now surrounded Keith—muttered.

            “Lotor’s an idiot,” another one said.

            “Don’t let him hear you say that. Next thing you know, you’ll be on this thing’s guard rotation,” a third chimed in.

            _I_ _’m not a thing,_ Keith wanted to say, but held back the remark. He didn’t trust his voice to stay whole, and playing it weak was probably better when he had no way of fighting back. It would at least spare him from being beaten any further, because another blow, and he could fall unconscious again, and he was _not_ dealing with those consequences.

            “Let’s get him back to the ship,” the officer holding Keith’s left arm said. “Inform the others that the search is over.”

            The two soldiers at his sides began marching, others falling into formation behind them and ahead of them. Once they reached the site of the hoverbikes, one of the soldiers broke away from Keith’s side, and Keith let himself droop, feigning—okay, so maybe not exactly _feigning_ —complete and utter exhaustion.

            “Stand up,” the soldier remaining next to him ordered, yanking Keith by the back of the neck.

            Keith winced at the feel of hands on his exposed skin. The soldier must’ve taken notice, smirking.

            “I see you finally know what a lab on Planet Ven feels like.”

            “Don’t tell him the location, dimwit,” the other soldier said, returning from one of the hoverbikes with a pair of handcuffs. “This one’s not usually so docile. He must be up to something.”

            The soldier with the cuffs took Keith from the other soldier, pinning his hands behind his back and snapping the pair of cuffs around his wrists. The cuffs rubbed up against his injuries, no matter which way Keith twisted his hands.

            “Let’s move,” the soldier said, and took Keith alone. The soldier forced Keith onto one of the hoverbikes and then climbed on behind him, boxing him in. At the very least, Keith could see the soldier’s hands in front of him, gripping the handlebars of the bike, but the hair on the back of his neck still stood up at the thought of someone behind him, while he was defenseless.

            It also didn’t help that his bare arms were now pinned between his back and the front of this guard, practically on fire.

            _Don_ _’t pass out,_ Keith thought as nausea rolled over him, as the bike shot forward. His pain, his illness, the lack of balance—they all threatened to bring Keith down.

            _You_ _’ve gotta stay conscious._

The ride back to the ship was short—it was parked unceremoniously in the middle of a burnt section of the woods, the ground and debris still smoking. The soldier hopped down from the bike and pulled Keith down after him. Without the use of his arms to steady himself, Keith stumbled and fell into the dirt, the jolt from the impact sending him retching once again.

            “Good job, Tek,” one of the nearby soldiers muttered.

            “I can’t help that he’s sick,” the soldier—Tek—shot back.

            Once Keith was done puking—“I’m not having this kid hurling his guts up _all over the ship,_ Naxin!”—Tek hauled him back to his feet and ordered him forward, while a pang of longing for the castleship hit Keith. This wasn’t the first time he’d gotten sick in space, not by any means. But it was the first time he’d been sick in space without a support network.

            What he wouldn’t give to see the others again.

            Keith sighed quietly, while he began the ascent up the entry ramp to the ship, Tek pressing the barrel of a blaster to the small of Keith’s back.

            When Keith finally boarded, he expected Tek to lead him down to a prison cell, or take him away to some chamber to be tortured. However, Tek instead led Keith to the bridge, where a small crew of officers waited for orders.

            “Establish a transmission to Central Command, and set a course,” Tek said, and Keith’s heart skipped a beat.

            “Yes sir,” one of the officers said, turning around and typing at a computer. No more than a few seconds later, the bridge screens darkened, lit only by the blinking words _Establishing Transmission_.

            _Breathe,_ Keith reminded himself.

            He hadn’t been shot dead on sight, even after Lotor had ordered his death. He had no idea what larger scheme was at play here—he just knew that right now, he was defenseless, a captive on a Galra ship, about to see Lance for the first time in…three weeks? Four? More than that?

            _Hopefully,_ Keith corrected. Lance had been at Central Command while he was in the lab, and Lotor hadn’t seen the point in bringing Lance into the transmission that had taken place then—just _hours_ ago. Why would he see the point now? Or maybe that _was_ the point, to keep them as far from each other as possible.

            _Stop thinking about him, what the_ fuck, _you keep doing this!_

            But then the bridge screens came to life, and Lance flickered through his thoughts again—

            And there he was.

            “Lance,” Keith breathed without thinking. It was him, alright. Hair still slicked back with whatever awful space gel he was using, face still glowing, still wearing clothing that he couldn’t possibly have been comfortable in, still at Lotor’s side.

            The one difference between Lance here, and the Lance from the broadcast, was the thin cut running down his cheek, blood dried at the edges. Keith caught the cut, and the brief look of panic that flashed through Lance’s features, before the Blue Paladin settled on a look closer to fright, as he took a step backwards, a step behind Lotor.

            _“Impressive,”_ Lotor said, cocking his head to the side as he took in Keith. _“Caught in just a matter of vargas. I thought it would take longer. I was prepared to wait quintants for this news.”_

            Keith tried to focus on Lotor’s words, and watch Lance from his periphery, because Lance was blinking again, much slower this time, knowing that officers were watching this play out in real time.

            _P_ _…L…A…_

            _“Oh, Jeremy,”_ Lotor cooed, turning toward Lance, and Keith’s fists balled behind his back. _“No need to be afraid, my love. Look at him. Defenseless. You’ll be able to have all the fun you want with him soon enough.”_

            Lance nodded feebly. _“He…he doesn’t bring back any memories, but…unpleasant feelings are resurfacing.”_

            _Doesn_ _’t bring back memories…he’s still using Morse…_

            The pieces slowly clicked together in Keith’s mind, and he had to force back the smile tugging at his lips.

            So Lotor had no idea.

            Lance was playing him like a fucking fiddle.

            But still…

            _What did he mean by_ _“fun”?_

            “I thought you wanted me dead,” Keith finally found it within himself to speak up, and Lotor tore his eyes away from Lance. “Why not just have your soldiers kill me right here?”

            _“Under other circumstances, I would,”_ Lotor replied.

            _N_ _…S…O…R…_

 _“But you see, something’s come up,”_ Lotor went on, and pulled Lance closer to him. His smirk at Keith widened, for a fraction of a second, before his face grew darker. _“Some of my officers don’t believe Jeremy and I truly love each other. We’ve no union, after all.”_

            _R_ _…Y…_

            “Oh, really?” Keith asked, as though he were having a chat with Lotor over tea.

            Lotor glared. _“It took me until just vargas ago to persuade Jeremy to agree.”_

            Keith coughed, startled. “You—” another cough “—what?!”

            Keith couldn’t help but flick his eyes to Lance between coughs, couldn’t help but try to find some connection there to the true Lance. Because right now, Lance was looking lovingly at Lotor, apparently done with whatever message he’d needed to blink through. Lance brought one hand up to Lotor’s shoulder and propped his chin up, and Keith imagined that, offscreen, his other hand was holding Lotor’s.

            _That should be me,_ the thought hit Keith, rage and sorrow fighting over who got to claim it.

            _“Yes,”_ Lotor said, bringing his free hand to Lance’s face, running knuckles over Lance’s cheek.

            _I_ _’m gonna puke again. Tek isn’t gonna be happy._

            Lotor paused in his staring at Lance to deliver the rest of his explanation to Keith. _“You see, some of my officers thought it would be_ funny _to try and take his life. Those officers have been_ _…dealt with.”_

            _No._

_“And so, what better way to convince them that our love is genuine than by marrying Jeremy once and for all? And, after three movements of persistence—”_

            _Thanks for the information, fuckface._

            _“—Jeremy’s agreed, on one condition.”_

            “Emperor Lotor,” Tek cut in, “should we be divulging this sort of information to a Paladin who’s escaped from your empire on several occasions before? All within the last phoeb, mind you?”

            _“Silence,”_ Lotor ordered. _“If he gets away again, I will have no problem executing those responsible. In this case, that would be_ you _and_ your _crew._ _”_

            Lotor turned back to Keith, a syrupy-sweet smile on his face. _“Jeremy has agreed to marry me on the condition that the Red Paladin is returned to Central Command, as alive and unharmed as possible, so that he may torture the Red Paladin as he sees fit, and then kill him when he’s through, as retribution for the misery you’ve caused him.”_

            “Misery?” Keith snapped, because Keith knew that Lotor knew that Keith had done nothing of the sort. “You wanna talk about who’s been causing more—”

            Tek backhanded Keith.

            _“Hey!”_ Lance’s voice cut in harshly. _“_ Lotor _will be the one ordering you to hurt him. Until then, those blows belong to_ me. I _will be the one causing him pain._ _”_

            Keith’s face stung in the wake of the backhand, a new red welt no doubt rising on his face. He forced himself to meet Lance’s eyes—even with them narrowed, and face contorted in “rage,” worry still shined through, the apology shined through, and the ache in Keith’s chest grew.

            After weeks of separation, this was their first meeting.

            What a shitty meeting.

            _“As for you, Red Paladin,”_ Lance said, and Keith’s stomach churned, _“save your breath while you still can.”_

            Lance stared at Keith for a heartbeat afterward, something like solidarity passing between them.

            _“We’ll be seeing each other again_ very _soon,_ _”_ Lotor chimed in, and broke the trance, and cut off the transmission, the bridge screens darkening and then returning back to normal. With the windows clear, Keith could see the ship slowly moving past the stars, having already broken out of Ven’s atmosphere.

            “Someone take him to the cells,” Tek ordered, shoving Keith at an officer standing nearby. “Once we pass this planet we’re coming up on, initiate hyperspeed.”

            The officer who caught Keith grumbled something unintelligible, probably some Galran swearword, and started toward out of the bridge.

            The officer remained silent all the way down the halls, different from most of the other members of Lotor’s regime Keith had ever run into. Most of them berated him, or talked badly about the Empire— _why not join the Blade,_ Keith always thought—but they never said _nothing._

            “So,” Keith started, but the officer held up a hand.

            “Not in the mood, Paladin. We should’ve killed you already. This is going to come back and bite us, I know it.”

            Just as the words left the officer’s mouth, the ship shuddered, lights flickering in and out.

            The officer swore again.

            “You Paladins are a plague on this empire,” the officer said, letting go of Keith in favor of grabbing their gun from their holster. “I should’ve—”

            The ship jolted, hard, and the officer and Keith were both thrown into the wall, Keith smacking his head against the metal, the officer doing the same, one stray shot going off—the last sound Keith heard, before everything went dark.

* * *

            Keith was sick and tired of waking up in places he hadn’t passed out.

            His eyes blinked open slowly, head throbbing almost right away at the smallest sliver of light. The dull roar of voices—nearby, others distant but echoing—filled his ears. He registered that he was lying on his back, and his hands were now cuffed in front of him—he wore no other restraints, and with that knowledge, he sat up.

            “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he whispered, swinging his legs over the side of the slab—a slab chained to a wall—that he’d been lying on. His legs threatened to give out beneath him as he stumbled the few steps toward the bars that made up the door to the cell he was apparently in, as he took in the sight of the room.

            He was in some kind of cell block, but it wasn’t Galran.

            This cell block was dingy and overcrowded. Innumerable cells stretched down the hall until they practically vanished into the darkness, while the rest of the hall rose three cells high. Keith himself was in a cell on the ground, and just across the way was another Galran, staring intently at him.

            This hadn’t been any of the ones on the ship, but Keith recognized her anyway.

            “Tiva?”

            Tiva smiled wryly at him.

            “Keith. It’s been a while. I take it things aren’t going well.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me to me: "stop hurting keith in your fanfics"  
> also me to me: "make him s u f f e r "
> 
> A N Y W A Y some housekeeping stuff:  
> -i deleted that fanfic VOLTRON SQUAD bc as it is the beach resort au hasn't updated since august and probably won't update for a while and i didn't want two unfinished fics to sit there, and also i've got that other chatfic i'm working on so i really don't need _two_ chatfics  
>  -other chatfic aka [squad up](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12199533/chapters/27702090) aka i keep hurting keith there too why am i like this (aka i lowkey started writing it as a ventfic/eileen-vicariously-lives-through-the-paladins-because-her-social-life-sucks thing and i keep hardcore projecting onto lance and keith)  
> -i'm not getting involved in any nycc-related shipping discourse but if you couldn't tell by now i love klance  
> -the next update to this fanfic might be later than a week bc 1. i have a shit ton of stuff to do for school for college-related stuff (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA) and 2. i really have no idea who the next chapter is about WHOOPS IT MIGHT END UP ABOUT KEITH AGAIN WHO KNOWS  
> -thank u so much for all ur lovely reviews i've been having my "week before my period PMSing crisis" crisis and i cried reading some of them you guys are all so wonderful
> 
> okay so now it's 11:13 PM and i have to shower and do homework it's about to be a late night, i love you all, the next update will probably be after s4 drops so i can't wait to see what new holes get blown into my fanon goodbye


	16. The One in Which Lance Snaps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The transmission had been the last straw.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey so i lowkey cried a little while writing this chapter, how's it going
> 
> I MEANT TO HAVE THIS UP A LOT SOONER BUT LIFE GOT IN THE WAY AND I WAS WRITING OTHER STUFF, AND EVERY TIME I HAD INSPIRATION I EITHER DIDN'T HAVE MY LAPTOP OR LITERALLY COULDN'T KEEP MY EYES OPEN
> 
> ANYWAY HERE'S THE NEW CHAPTER, IF IT SEEMS A LITTLE INCOHERENT YOU CAN CHOOSE TO BLAME ME (I'M SO TIRED SOS) OR BLAME LANCE (YOU'LL SEE)
> 
>  
> 
> **TRIGGER WARNING for dubcon kissing and Lancelot content.**

Chapter 16

            _What did they do to you?_

            Lance couldn’t breathe. That had been _Keith_ , alive but not unharmed. Burned and bruised and cut up and sick and in pain and _breathe breathe breathe_ and Lance had to stand there and threaten him, had to stand there and tell him that he was going to end his life as soon as they met up in person—sometime soon, if all went according to plan.

            He thought he could handle it. After three and a half weeks of absolute silence about Keith, he’d finally been granted his wish, to get an update on his condition, to actually _see_ him, and this was what he got.

            _I_ _’m sorry I’m so sorry—_

            Did Keith understand? Did he see the Morse code? Did he know that he wanted none of this? He had to, the look that’d been on his face, beneath all the hurt—Lance had _connected_ with him, had seen understanding in his eyes. It’d been _understanding_ , right? Had it not been? Did Keith genuinely think he had amnesia? No, there was no way, Keith knew him enough to read him…right? Had they not had enough time together?

            “My love,” Lotor said, and snapped Lance out of his thoughts, “are the unpleasant feelings still bothering you? You appear…distressed.”

            Lotor understood, on some level, that Lance’s anxiety was kicking in, but was misinterpreting its cause completely. He believed the events of the day were stressing him out, and had insisted upon bringing him back to his room, where they were headed now, Lotor’s arm snug around his waist.

            “You were staring at the Red Paladin,” Lotor noted quietly, and Lance didn’t miss the almost _threatening_ edge to his voice. “You were afraid of him, I can see that plainly. But…was there something else, perhaps?”

            Up went the bars, up went the roof, in went the bait. Lotor was setting a trap, plain and simple. Lance could dance around it and conjure up some new lie, that he thought someone he was supposed to have the luxury of beating to death would be a blank canvas for him to paint with blood, so _why the hell did he look like death in the transmission?_ But he was supposed to have believed Keith dead. Of course they’d hurt him. Of course he’d look like shit.

            Lance stepped inside of the bars, stooped down to take the bait.

            “I…felt funny about him,” Lance pretended like this was some sort of strange admission. “There was the part of me that was afraid of him. The part of me that wanted him dead. And then…there was some part of me that wanted to care about him. Why is that? D-Did he do something to me, when I was infiltrating the Paladins?”

            Picked up the bait. Inspected the bait.

            Lotor stopped walking and pulled at Lance until their chests were flush against each other, reaching with his free hand to cup his face.

            “Yes,” Lotor answered. “What he did to you tore me up inside, watching it all play out.”

            Lance swallowed hard, heat rushing to his cheeks. “What did he do to me?”

            _Take the bait? Set it back down?_

            Lotor brushed a thumb over Lance’s cheek. Lance shuddered—Lotor smiled wistfully, completely misinterpreting his revulsion.

            “He tried to force you into a romance,” Lotor answered, and Lance almost lost it right then and there. Hell, _Jeremy_ should’ve lost it right then and there.

 _Isn_ _’t that what you’re doing right now?!_ Lance wanted to shout. _You_ _’re literally trying to force me into a marriage!_

            “What?” Lance squeaked.

            _Manipulative piece of garbage. Of course you_ _’d say that about Keith. He’s nothing like you, he’ll never be like you—_

_Lock Lance away, you are Jeremy._

            “The Voltron Alliance was falling apart, splitting at the seams,” Lotor said. “The Blue and Red Paladins were known for fighting, for a very long time—diplomats spanning galaxies could recall spats between them. The Red Paladin believed the only way to win people over was with a romance, and who better to play up that romance than two Paladins who’d previously been at each others’ throats? If allies could see that even the fiercest enemies could come together, then they would join. At least, that was the Red Paladin’s rationale.”

            _How long have you been working on that story? Since the transmission? There_ _’s no way you came up with that on the fly. You’re bad at lying, Lotor. Lance and Jeremy both know that._

            “The Red Paladin made your relationship very public, and forced you into the role of a dumbfounded lover, forced you into acts you’d never have gone through with. But you needed them to believe in your loyalty. You needed them to believe you were truly on their side. Your act went on for phoebs, nearly a decaphoeb. Part of you has probably formed an attachment to him.”

            Lotor’s arm tightened around his waist, and he caught Lance’s unfocused gaze. Lance brought himself back to the present, detaching from his thoughts of Keith, from his thoughts of final moments together on a castleship before descending for separation, of the training deck, of Keith’s dark hair between his fingers, of Keith’s heartbeat syncing with his own…

            _Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy—_

 _Shut up, you_ _’re not Jeremy—_

_YES, I AM._

            “I don’t like it,” Lance whispered, eyes falling away from Lotor’s, landing on his lips, bracing for the inevitable.

            _I don_ _’t like you._

_Yes I do._

            “Then allow me to help eradicate it.”

            Lotor, now, gazed at Lance’s mouth, brushing tentative fingers over his lips, while Lance swallowed the lump in his throat.

            _You can help me by leaving._

_Help me by staying._

            Lotor’s fingers dropped to Lance’s chin,and he tilted Lance’s head up, and their lips met.

            Hot tears, burning Lance’s eyes, forced their way through eyelids he’d screwed shut, and Lance grabbed Lotor’s face in a moment of desperation.

            _Please misinterpret my tears, please don_ _’t send me to the druids, please don’t wipe my mind, I love you, believe that I love you—_

            _Lotor_ was the one to break the kiss this time, drawing back and allowing his thumb to brush away some of Lance’s tears.

            “My love, you need to rest,” Lotor said. “The day has been stressful. I imagine, with the Red Paladin’s arrival, your emotional state will only grow worse.”

            Lance nodded mutely, taking in a shuddering breath, trying to blink away tears that wouldn’t stop coming, his vision blurring again.

            _I need to let this out, please leave me alone._

            Lance managed to mostly keep it together the rest of the way to his room, Lotor holding him much too close for comfort, holding him the way Keith should’ve been on the castleship, where they should’ve been resting _together,_ and _fucking quiznak I need to let this out please leave shut the door go away let me cry in peace._

            “Will you be alright by yourself?” Lotor asked, and if Lance lost it now, then Lotor would never leave.

            “Y-Yeah,” Lance said, pulling himself out of Lotor’s grasp.

            Lotor hesitated—Lance didn’t turn around, but Lotor had a certain presence that was impossible to ignore. And then Lotor left, and the door slid shut, and Lance barely made it into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him, before his knees hit tile and he broke down.

            The pain shattered his chest, agonized sobs wrenching their way free, getting caught up somewhere in his throat, and he choked out each one, struggling to breathe. His lungs burned, his stomach was in knots, and his head pounded. Tears didn’t so much leave neat trails on his cheeks as they flooded his entire face, the dams of his eyelids bursting.

            “I’m sorry I’m _so fucking sorry!_ ” Lance shrieked into the floor, hunching in on himself.

            So far—he was so far in over his head. And now? Now he’d dragged Keith in with him. Soldiers had captured him, and it would only be a matter of time before they arrived, and then what? Lance still had no idea where the bayards were being kept, and he’d have to rely on Blue and Red to lead him to them. He had no concept of just how big Central Command truly was—Lotor kept him in the same few sectors each day, never not at his side.

            _What if he knows?_

            The thought slammed into Lance at full force as he heaved a fresh round of sobs.

            What if Lotor knew? Had that been no more than a test to see whether Lance would finally snap? To see how far he would push himself and his act as Jeremy? Or was it just to test how Lance’s supposed amnesia would react at the sight of Keith?

            If Lotor knew, what did it mean that he was going to bring Keith here?

            Lance’s throat seemed to close—before he knew it, he was clawing at his chest, clawing at his neck, trying to get air back into his burning lungs. But each time his airway cleared, another sob forced its way through, leaving him gasping again.

            _I fucked up—I fucked up so badly—Keith is going to die and it_ _’s all my fault—_

            Why? Why couldn’t he just have been reasonable and asked for Lotor to give him a weapon in the first place? Why did he have to demand that the Empire hunt down Keith when they knew exactly where Keith was?

            _“Lance, my child,”_ Blue started, but the blood roaring in his ears drowned her out, drowned out her attempts at soothing him. Red, too, tried forcing her way into Lance’s head with a barrage of kind words—albeit a little sharper-spoken than Blue—but their efforts were all for naught. In the end, Lance found himself against the wall, knees drawn to his chest, a balled fist to his mouth to stifle his cries.

            “Getittogethergetittogethergetittogether…”

            _Gotta breathe gotta breathe would you quiznaking breathe already—_

            Lance didn’t hear the footsteps outside of his room. He hardly heard the door to his room open. The true panic didn’t set in until he heard Lotor’s voice in the middle of his bedroom, “Jeremy?”

            _No_ _…nonononono go away…what if he finds me like this, he’s going to know—BREATHE—_

Lance found himself unable to form words, unable to move from his position in the bathroom. If Lotor grew impatient or suspicious enough, Lance had no doubt that the Emperor would have no problem barging in on him.

            _I can_ _’t be seen like this, he’ll send me to the druids, I need to move, I need to clean up, breathe, speak, say something—_

            Lance jumped as someone—Lotor—rapped at the bathroom door.

            “Jeremy? Are you alright?”

            _I_ _’m fine._ The lie lodged itself in Lance’s throat as he sucked in silent breath after silent breath, trying to get his lungs functioning like lungs should’ve, trying to get his brain back on track, focused on the task at hand.

            After three and a half weeks, these sorts of breakdowns should _not_ have been occurring. He should’ve been past this, should’ve been firmly into his role as Jeremy Ortega, should’ve been able to handle news about Keith. He’d had plenty of time to prepare—now this was just downright _pathetic._

_“You’ve been bottling everything up for the sake of appearing strong, you have to let—”_

            “I’m fine,” Lance finally called through the door, voice shaking slightly as he cut off Blue in his head. He braced himself against the wall as he rose to his feet, and stumbled his way over to the sink. He turned on the tap and splashed some of the cold water on his face in an effort to reduce the redness, reduce the puffiness.

            _Pull it together, Jeremy,_ Lance thought, studying his reflection. The dark bags that plagued the space underneath his eyelids for the first few days here were at least fading, but the creases in his skin were deepening, and his acne fought against his skincare routine nearly every day. That much was evident by the small cropping of bumps on the side of his face.

            _Persistent._

            Just like himself. Just like Keith, somehow still alive out there in the universe, when Lance thought for sure he’d be dead by now, seeing as Lotor had had several openings to kill him. Just like Lance thought he might’ve back at the embassy on Tarvin Three, when they were both defenseless, when Lance was right there to witness—

            _Jeremy. Get back into Jeremy. Lotor is out there._

            _You_ love _Lotor._

_Keith is a thorn in your side, in need of eliminating._

            Lance rolled his shoulders and stepped out of the bathroom, raising his eyebrows curiously at Lotor.

            “Why have you returned so soon?” Lance asked, as Lotor swept him into an embrace—he’d been waiting directly outside of the door.

            “I’ve awful news,” Lotor said, pressing Lance’s face to his chest, fingers stroking the back of his head, as though fully aware that Lance had been breaking down in the bathroom.

            _Relax. Relax. Relax. Relax._ Lance tried to loosen the tension in his muscles, melting against Lotor. Truthfully, he yearned for meaningful contact, yearned for warm embraces. Lotor’s embraces, up until this moment, had not been like that. Most of the time, it had been acts in front of officers. Or attempts to manipulate Lance’s feelings.

            _This shouldn_ _’t be—_

_Shut up._

_But—_

_You_ _’re Jeremy._

_You like this._

            “What news?” Lance whispered, as though dropping his voice would trick his brain into being quiet, too.

            Lotor didn’t hesitate. “We lost contact with the prison ship shortly after the transmission. Final distress signals from the ship indicated an attack.”

            The words took a moment to process. Prison ship. As in, the ship that’d been sent to Ven to intercept Keith—the ship that _had_ intercepted Keith. Attacked. As in, potentially shot down. As in, potentially blown up. With Keith on board.

            After Lance told Lotor to send soldiers after him.

            _Please—please, no, nonono—_

            _“He’s alive,”_ Red’s urgent voice entered Lance’s head. _“Lance, it’s okay. He’s_ alive _. I feel him._ _”_

            Red’s voice had some kind of energy to it—almost as though she were preoccupied speaking to someone else. Blue, maybe? Either way, the energy didn’t feel pleasant. It was almost _mocking,_ high-and-mighty, an unspoken _I told you so,_ and bitterness, directed at the two lions with whom he had a connection, rushed through Lance.

            _“My son,”_ Blue began, only for Lance to cut her off with an angered _stop, let me handle this._

            Blue’s anxious energy continued to pulse down her bond with Lance, and then Red joined in, and Lance wished that he could just _sever this fucking connection,_ because was anxious enough on his own, right before Lotor—Lotor, holding him, stroking the back of his head so _gently,_ something Lance didn’t even think he was capable of…

            “And what of the fates of those on board?” Lance asked. “The Red Paladin—if he’s made an escape, then he remains a threat.”

            Lotor’s arms tightened around Lance. “According to the last distress signals, the attack was large. There’s reason to believe the entire ship, as well as every soul on board, was obliterated. My love…I apologize, that you never got to have your way. But it appears that the Red Paladin is finally gone.”

            _Liar,_ Lance thought, as images of Keith in handcuffs flashed through his mind. _You_ _’re lying to me._ Keith, being thrown violently to the ground in the midst of a fireball. _Why do you keep doing this?_ Keith, pinned underneath burning pieces of wreckage, tormented screams piercing an otherwise silent, desolate planet. The lone survivor of a crash. Begging anyone out there to help him, free him—

            The first sob escaped Lance before he could stop it.

            _No, no, not now, not in front of him_ _…_

            Lance’s traitorous mind and body wouldn’t listen.

            Agony cleaved through him, and he could do nothing but nestle further into Lotor’s embrace and hope to every higher power out there that Lotor was buying this, was mistaking his mental breakdown for unfettered relief at the idea of Keith finally being dead.

            “Why do you weep, dearest?” Lotor murmured, pressing a kiss into the top of Lance’s head. “Do you still harbor the feelings he forced upon you?”

            _He knows._

_He has to know._

_I can_ _’t get out of this._

Each thought ripped a new hole in Lance’s heart, made it harder to breathe, forced more tears beyond the broken floodgates, clenched his fingers tighter into the front of Lotor’s armor, Blue and Red’s waves of concern lost amidst the stormy seas of Lance’s mind.

            “He-he’s finally g-go-gone,” Lance stammered out, each word of the false admittance like a punch to the gut.

            _Get it together._

 _Jeremy wouldn_ _’t sob like this._

 _You_ _’re being ridiculous._

_How the fuck do you expect to survive here?_

“Indeed he is,” Lotor whispered, hand stroking the back of Lance’s head. “He cannot hurt you anymore.”

            _You were fine just hours ago._

_Your resolve is cracking._

_Fill the cracks._

_Don_ _’t let them show up again._

_You love Lotor. Stop acting like this is painful._

            “Come,” Lotor whispered, and broke the embrace only slightly. He pulled Lance over to his bed and sat down against the headboard, tugging the Blue Paladin after him.

            Lance’s legs, weak and wobbly, gave out, and he collapsed on the mattress, crawling toward Lotor with his aid. The tears wouldn’t stop, and the pressure in his chest threatened to collapse his lungs, snap his ribcage, shut down his heart, beating too fast and too hard.

            Lotor held onto him with steady arms, as Lance’s heart hammered away at his chest.

            _I can_ _’t do this._

_Drop the act._

_Drop it now._

_I can_ _’t keep going on like this._

            “It’s alright, my love,” Lotor murmured. “Let it out. Bottling emotions does one no good.”

            Lotor rubbed circles into Lance’s back, while Lance let out every last tear he possessed. He must’ve cried for ten minutes, at least, before his eyes leaked no more, before he could finally breathe at a rate sort of resembling normalcy, before the exhaustion settled in his bones and kept him anchored in place.

            Before he dropped the last walls he’d erected.

            Before his guard came down.

            Before his thoughts fragmented, piece by fragile piece, and faded away, and unconsciousness claimed him.

* * *

            The Blue Paladin had finally snapped, Mirak thought vargas later, as Lotor relayed every detail to the officers who’d been unfortunate enough to be stuck on the bridge with him after his visit to the Blue Paladin’s room. It had been a visit to inform him of the crash on some planet called Ruovi, out in the Bovona-Bolza- _can_ _’t these people settle on one name_ -System.

            Lotor, at the very least, seemed oblivious to the fact that the Blue Paladin was faking everything.

            Or, if he had any inkling of the Blue Paladin’s real motives, they were lost beneath the Emperor’s obnoxious pining and bragging, that he’d finally gotten the Blue Paladin to accept his fate as Jeremy, that he needed conditioning no more—he was firmly in his grasp as his lover.

            He hadn’t even needed to call upon the druids to make sure of it.

            _Wrong move,_ Mirak noted. _Even more wrong move to brag about it in front of me._

            “So now,” Lotor said, “while Jeremy is asleep, I have a few vargas to accomplish the Red Paladin’s true assassination. How long until we can get new ships to Ruovi?”

            “Not a good idea,” Mirak answered, arms crossed as she stood before Lotor. “Ruovi is apparently known in the Bovona System for shooting down any ships that aren’t their own. Especially Galra ships. Sending more in would result in a loss of weaponry and soldiers.”

            “Not if we overwhelm the Ruovin forces,” Lotor said, and gestured for a different officer to step forward, waving Mirak away, back to her own business.

            Her _own business_ as of late had been trying to figure out where the hell every crew member aboard Lotor’s other ship with hacking skills had gone off to. A handful of pods had all left the pod bays that day, when the resident hackers were called away for some important meeting. Mirak’s last three comrades, _friends,_ from the Blade of Marmora, had all been among them.

            She hadn’t managed to grab any coordinates from any of the launched pods. No destinations. No equipment. Nobody had bothered to mention to her that they were leaving to go on some mission, and seeing as it was nearing on a phoeb from their departure…those hackers weren’t coming back.

            Tiva, Bix, and Cosso weren’t coming back.

            The one upside ( _upside,_ in the loosest sense of the word) was that the day Mirak caught interference signals from Altean technology among their own communications, she hadn’t needed to say a word. Mirak probably hadn’t been the only one to catch it, but she also wasn’t part of their hacker division, had no knowledge of how to stop a hack from the Green Paladin, and wasn’t even on active duty.

            If anyone else had caught it, they had the same idea as her: _not my problem._

            The hacking went unnoticed.

            Lotor was oblivious to the fact that the Paladins had a way right into Central Command, to accrue information on their missing teammates.

            That day, she’d gotten an idea.

            Today, she mused now, slipping off of the bridge, she would begin aiding them directly.

            She was no Tiva, no Bix or Cosso, but she was a member of the Blade of Marmora, and her cover-up skills were at least decent. All she had to do was establish a communications link to the Paladins and hide it beneath other data. Simple. Baby steps. But before she could even do that, she needed to truly confirm that the Blue Paladin was in the right state of mind, that she’d be able to form a cohesive plan with the rest of the Paladins, a plan where the Blue Paladin would be able to carry his own weight.

            She needed to confirm that he was merely _acting_ now, just as he’d been acting when the Red Paladin had accompanied him aboard Lotor’s ship for the first time.

            Mirak wove through the corridors of Central Command, taking the long way around to the wing containing the bedrooms of the imperial family—or, what _had_ been the imperial family, but now contained one sole survivor—and personal guests. By the time she got there, it was deserted, no guards standing posted at the Blue Paladin’s bedroom door.

            _Nice going, Prince Lotion,_ Mirak thought, stepping up to the door and placing her hand upon the print-pad.

            Mirak’s fingers had just barely pressed down, palm not even touching the pad, when a loud alarm blared. Somewhere in the distance, the sound of metal clanging echoed—slamming doors, charging sentries. Mirak swore under her breath and took off at a dead heat through the corridors, careful to avoid the busier halls, until she came upon a utility closet. Utility closets had more basic print-pads, and this one opened up for her. She ducked inside, shut the door, held her breath, and waited.

            Mirak counted forty-seven doboshes before she let herself out, thirty of which had been filled with yelling and shooting and clanking, Lotor’s angry voice rising above it all, outraged that someone _dare try to invade the privacy of my second-in-command, my lover, Jeremy Ortega, how dare you._

            In that time, Mirak pondered over why the print-pad hadn’t answered to her at all.

            She knew that at some point, it had been reprogrammed so that GalraTech was useless in opening that particular door, but Mirak was Galran, one-hundred percent. It should’ve opened for her. Her only conclusion was that at some point, between berating his officers and parading Jeremy—no, not Jeremy, _Lance,_ the Blue Paladin, he deserved his real title—around the ship, Lotor had gotten around to reprogramming the door. Again.

            To answer only to his touch.

            That would explain why there were no guards outside of the Blue Paladin’s room; only one person had the power to just waltz on inside, and it just so happened to be the same person currently ruling the universe.

            Mirak hated to admit that it was a well-played move.

            She slunk out of the closet in once-again-silent halls. She needed someone to get her through to that door. Tiva would have known how to do it, but Tiva was dead. Mirak knew only of one other hacker, off the top of her head, who could aid her in getting through the door. That hacker just needed to be present, in Central Command, to get through.

            That was kind of difficult, when the hacker in question was the Green Paladin.

            _You can do this,_ Mirak told herself, heading for her own quarters, to turn in for the day, now that she was off-duty. Tomorrow, she’d find some way to get into contact with the Paladins, give them the Red Paladin’s last known location, update them on the Blue One’s situation, figure out a plan to get them onto the base, and then figure out a way to get them off.

            “No problem,” Mirak whispered, shaking her head on the way to her quarters. “No problem at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think i broke him
> 
>  **ANYWAY HOUSEKEEPING UPDATES**  
>  -season 4 blew some holes in my fanon, oh well, also i've cried over s04e06 at least once a day since the season dropped  
> -[squad up](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12199533/chapters/27702090) has been updating every single day, so if you're looking for something quick and fun to read with a ton of klance content hit it up, sometimes i mention my progress on this fic in the notes for that fic  
> -i wrote a oneshot set pretty much immediately after s04e06 because i needed to release my emotions: [no paladin left behind](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12377439)  
> -i already have chapter 17 started bc the beginning of chapter 17 was actually written as the original version of chapter 16, so maybe chapter 17 will be up by monday, and we'll be back on a "once a week" updating schedule  
> -my friend is currently on chapter 2 of where people go to die and is currently flipping shit over _that_ so idk she might kill me when she reaches the end of dynasty decapitated, right now i'm just enjoying watching her suffer, ily amanda  
>  -chapter 17 hints: we'll be seeing team voltron again. sorry keith, you've gotta wait.
> 
> OKAY HAVE A LOVELY DAY/NIGHT/AFTERNOON/WHATEVER TIME IT IS THAT YOU'RE READING THIS


	17. The One in Which Team Voltron Returns to Tarvin Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Voltron returns to Tarvin Two to try and track down Keith once and for all. As usual, things don't go as planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really don't have a good excuse for this being almost two weeks late. I mean, maybe if I stopped working on [squad up](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12199533/chapters/27702090) so much...
> 
> ANYWAY, SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG, IT'S A LONGER CHAPTER THOUGH. ALSO, IF THE VOLTRON WRITERS WON'T GIVE HUNK THE DEVELOPMENT HE DESERVES, I GUESS I'LL DO IT MYSELF.
> 
>  **RECAP:** When we last saw the Paladins, a few days ago, they'd just seen the broadcast Lotor sent out, featuring Lance. The Paladins set to work, determined to bring their boys home. Meanwhile, Keith's stuck in a prison on a planet called Ruovin, where he's reunited with Tiva, while Lance has snapped and Mirak can do nothing to help him.
> 
> **Trigger warnings for mild blood and gore.**

Chapter 17

            Things could’ve gone down a lot better, but Hunk was still grateful as _hell_ that Yellow had been fast enough to take that hit before Green could. Because if it left Yellow like this—powered down, a giant crater surrounding them, the cockpit’s lights flashing red while the busted alarms didn’t blare—then the same hit would’ve _obliterated_ Green, and killed Pidge instantly.

            _“Hunk, what the actual fuck?!”_

            Hunk noticed the trend first, after the battle on Tarvin One, and quietly mentioned it to Shiro after their last betrayal, the same betrayal that left Pidge in a healing pod for a week. At some point, Lotor’s forces began targeting Green and Pidge, the smallest of both the lions and the paladins, but one of the most essential pairs to their team. If Pidge were to be captured or killed, they’d be down their hacker, down the biggest brain on the team, and down the team’s little sister.

            Pidge’s death would break everyone, and the Galra seemed to have figured that one out.

            “You okay, Pidge?” Hunk responded.

            Pidge released another string of swearwords, one Shiro didn’t bother interrupting, and ended her tirade with, _“What were you thinking?!”_

            “Did _you_ really wanna try taking that hit?” Hunk said. “I knew Yellow and I could get through that one. You and Green would never have made it.”

            _“At least_ warn _me that you think you can survive—fucking hell, Hunk, I thought you were a goner! You can_ _’t just take a hit for me like that!”_

 _“He can and he did,”_ Shiro interrupted, voice stern. _“Both of you, focus. Hunk, I need you to get Yellow back up and running as soon as possible. Pidge, what’s your ETA?”_

            Pidge grumbled something unintelligible on her end of the comms, and then said, _“I’m coming up on the Eruda Center right now, but I’m going to need backup. I’m about two minutes out.”_

“I’m trying here,” Hunk said, mentally reaching out, seeking his connection to Yellow.

            Scanning through the data extracted from Central Command, combined with the information gleaned from various legs of the Voltron Alliance—mostly from the Olkari—still hadn’t yielded much on this secretive Bovona System, just that it had to do with illegal trade, which was likely why it was never logged in the castle: it was meant to be kept away from the prying eyes of the law.

            The Paladins’ best bets on figuring out the Bovona System coordinates, they decided, lay within the Tarvin chain. Before the Paladins could even consider getting to Tarvin Three, Lance and Keith’s last known location, before Lance was spirited away to Central Command, and Keith was sent to his doom, they needed some sort of checkpoint. The Eruda Center made for a good destination. From there, perhaps they wouldn’t even need to make their way to Swamp Tarvin, as Pidge had once referred to it. Maybe they could datamine those computer systems from the safety of the Eruda Center.

            The building was where Hunk had been heading when he spotted a Galra battle cruiser locked onto the Green Lion, preparing to fire a too-powerful cannon at it, and the decision had been a no-brainer.

            _“I’ll do the best I can to assist,”_ Allura’s voice rang through the comms.

            For this fight, she commanded the castleship, Coran in charge of the laser cannons.

            It would’ve been so much better, Hunk mused, still trying to find and latch onto Yellow’s presence, if they had four lions. Preferably the Blue Lion—then Allura could have been on the ground with them. Still, maybe Red would’ve let her in, just for the sake of having four people in battle, as opposed to three, plus two in the ship— _in any capacity,_ getting to the Eruda Center in three lions was a challenge, and Hunk didn’t want to admit that he was starting to doubt that they could do it.

            _“Hunk, stop doubting!”_

            It was Allura’s voice, not ringing in the comms but rather in his head. He still wasn’t quite used to the fact that Allura could enter his mind almost any time she wanted—she’d been practicing the week Pidge was in the pod, an experiment to see if she could connect Pidge and the Green Lion, both to hone her own skills and heal Pidge faster.

            “Sorry,” Hunk said, shaking his head to clear his thoughts.

            Connecting to his mindscape got easier each time he did it, even more so when Allura’s intimidating form was standing there, silently encouraging with the hard look that told him he wasn’t allowed to give up.

            “C’mon, Yellow…I need you, buddy…”

            Yellow’s presence flickered weakly in response, a soft but garbled _“I’m trying”_ echoing in Hunk’s head.

            In Hunk’s mindscape, yellow wires appeared before him, dangling just out of reach, crackling and fizzling, fading in and out of existence. Allura came to Hunk’s side, eyes screwed shut, hands outstretched. Hunk, too, reached out. Taller than Allura, he managed to grip one of the wires before it could fade away from him, ignoring the sharp but brief flare of pain in his hand from the electricity crackling about it, before it settled and materialized for good.

            _“I’m thirty seconds out and there are fighters coming in from_ nowhere! _Is anyone getting a reading on them?!_ _”_ Pidge shouted into the comms, voice booming from every direction in Hunk’s mindscape.

            _“Some of them are arriving from hyperspeed, it would appear,”_ Coran responded. _“I’ll do the best I can here to eliminate as many as possible. Shiro, Hunk, you_ must _get in there and assist Pidge._ _”_

            Allura reached out and grabbed onto another two of the wires, while Hunk reached for a second, and then a third. More and more of them were materializing, staying around for longer periods of time, and soon enough, Yellow’s energy pushed at the back of Hunk’s mind.

            _“I’m here, Hunk. Are you ready?”_

            “Ready,” Hunk replied, and next to him, Allura smiled grimly, before her features shifted back into harsh concentration. Yellow’s energy thrummed now, blue light shooting up the wires that Allura held onto.

            Yellow’s energy entered Hunk’s mind, entered his blood, his bones, became the oxygen he breathed. Hunk’s thoughts merged with his Lion’s, merged with Allura’s, until they were all one connected being, one end goal in mind: get back into that battle and get the hell into the Eruda Center. They had boys to find and bring home.

            All at once, Hunk slammed back into consciousness, Yellow’s mechanical body grunting and groaning as it got back to its haunches, reinvigorated.

            “Yeah, that’s it!” Hunk shouted, pumping one fist in the air. “Let’s get back in there and kick some Galra _booty!_ Pidge, I’m comin’ in!”

            _“HURRY! I’ve got six of these—make that five, thanks Shiro!—fuckers on my tail!”_

            Seconds later, Pidge yelped and let out another quiet string of swearwords, something about showing the fighters just what she was made of.

            Yellow took off from where he’d been lying on the ground, absorbing the lasers shot by the fighters jumping on them, body-slamming into others and shattering them, crushing them, causing a few to blow up as fuel lines caught fire and tanks erupted. Soon enough, Yellow and Hunk came upon Shiro and Pidge, moving in for a landing outside of a heavily-fortified Eruda Center, hordes of ground troops posted.

            _“Area 51 would be easier to break into than this place!”_ Pidge said, growling slightly.

            _“Whatever information in here is too valuable to let slip,”_ Shiro remarked, voice hard. _“So we don’t rest until we have it.”_

            “Something’s gotta be happening with the Bovona System. With Keith. The only people who seem to know about it, anywhere in the galaxy, either live in the Tarvin Chain or work for the Empire,” Hunk said, hands tightening around the levers at his side. “There hasn’t been any confirmation anywhere that Keith is dead.”

            Shiro inhaled sharply on his end of the comms, and Hunk winced. “Sorry, man.”

            _“It’s…fine. And you’re right. Something is definitely happening. Lotor wouldn’t send waves of reinforcements like this unless this directly threatened him. If something is happening with Keith….this would be the time and place to find out what.”_

 _“So how are we getting in there? We’re taking heavy fire, I can’t just cloak—they’re already locked onto my energy signature,”_ Pidge said.

            Hunk drummed his fingers on the levers in his hands, while Shiro muttered unintelligibly to himself.

            “I could smash my way in,” Hunk said hesitantly.

            _“Hunk, I_ swear, _if you and Yellow go down like that again—_ _”_

            “Easy, Pidge,” Hunk interrupted. “We’ve got this covered. Shiro, I’ll need you right behind us. That way, between me and Yellow, and you and Black, we should be able to draw enough attention to the ships. Pidge, as soon as we draw their fire, you and Green need to go invisible and sneak in around another side of the base. Can you handle it?”

            _“Pidge is going alone?”_ Shiro asked.

            _“We can monitor her from the castle,”_ Coran cut in. _“And we can provide covering fire where we see fit.”_

            “She won’t be alone—just finding an alternate entrance and linking back up with us as soon as possible,” Hunk said. “But only if she’s up for it.”

            _“I’ll do whatever I can if it means getting in there,”_ Pidge said.

            _“Alright. As soon as we’re in, we need to get back together. Once we’re out of the Lions and inside of the Eruda Center, no one is soloing_ anything _. Are we clear?_ _”_ Shiro said.

            “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Hunk responded, and Pidge echoed his sentiments, a note of regret in her voice, like she was remembering what had happened last time she’d run ahead of the group in an effort to glean more information on the Empire’s moves.

            Hunk’s stomach churned.

            “So is everyone ready? We’re going in on my count.”

            Pidge, Shiro, Coran, and Allura all called that they were ready, and Hunk sucked in a shuddering breath. If they had five Lions, this wouldn’t have been a problem at all—his anxiety wouldn’t have been riding so high. But they were down Red and down Blue, down Keith and down Lance. No forming Voltron and cutting down enemies with a giant sword. No Lance and Blue to freeze their enemies in place, no Red and Keith to swoop in and melt down anyone else standing in their way.

            “Three.”

            Three Lions, four Paladins, one castleship, against innumerable ground troops, and at least two fleets converging on them from the air.

            “Two.”

            No one even bothered questioning about a contingency plan—no one had bothered questioning one in the past, either, and that was how Lance and Keith ended up in hot water too many times.

            “One.”

            _Maybe it_ _’ll work this time,_ Hunk thought, and thrust the levers forward, releasing the breath he’d been holding. Yellow rocketed ahead of Black and Green, straight into enemy territory. Fighter ships, suddenly alarmed at the Yellow Lion’s advances, turned on him, laser fire battering Yellow’s sides, phantom pain tingling through Hunk. It was a sensation he’d never quite gotten used to, even as he made it a point to take as many hits for the team as he could (those _unavoidable_ hits—he didn’t have a _death wish_ , unlike the others), what with his superior armor.

            Not that they always noticed. Maybe if they did, they’d yell at him more often to cut it out.

            “Come on, come _on_ _…_ ,” Hunk hissed, Yellow shuddering under a particularly nasty blast. They just needed to hold out until they actually touched down at the Eruda Center, until Shiro and Pidge could come in, and the castleship could get closer, and they could turn the tide and pin this place down.

            _“Cloaking now!”_ Pidge called— _that was fast_ —while Shiro called that he was coming in to watch Hunk’s six. In the castleship, Allura called shots while Coran executed them, mowing down a whole section of fighter ships that were too focused on the Paladins to notice the princess and her advisor.

            Yellow wove through a section of fighters, while Hunk fired at them with Yellow’s lasers.

            “ETA twenty ticks,” Hunk said, eyes flicking to the map on one of the screens at his right. “Yellow’s holding up for now.”

            Just as the words left Hunk’s mouth, a group of fighters slammed into Yellow’s left side at once, sending the Lion tumbling out of formation, Hunk scrambling to regain control. He screamed involuntarily, out of surprise more than anything else, earning concerned shouts over the comms from the rest of the team.

            _“Hunk, what_ was _that?_ _”_

            “You saw that, Shiro?”

            _“It was perfectly coordinated—sentries don’t do that when they pilot.”_

            So, these weren’t sentries piloting the fighter ships, then. At least, not all of them were sentries.

            Hunk was no stranger to killing Galran officers and soldiers. This was a war, and awful as it was, they stood in the way of peace and freedom for the universe. Sometimes they were persistent, so sometimes, they needed to be permanently removed from the situation.

 _Galra deaths looked too much like human deaths. For a few seconds that seemed to stretch infinitely, Hunk stared ahead, kept seeing blood and skin and bone and muscle and tissue and_ I did that _spray across the scene. Some landing on the ground. Some on Pidge_ _’s helmet as she screamed and dropped out of the arms of the soldier, and then turned and got right back into the melee, slashing out with her katar. Some even reaching Hunk’s own helmet._

It’s so red, _Hunk thought distantly, momentarily unable to do anything but stand and watch Galra debris slide down his visor._ Just like a human’s.

            _He_ _’d seen this before, in transmissions. The same shade running down a blade, in the emperor’s hand while the arena roared around him, and soldiers and officers lay lifeless at his feet. The murderer there had been proud. Triumphant. Blood spatters on his face served to make him look that much tougher. That much stronger. The blood spatters on Hunk’s face—_ there’s blood on my face, oh, oh no—

            _“Hunk!” Pidge shrieked, and the reverie broke. “Hunk, we have to go! COME ON!”_

_Hunk_ _’s eyes found Pidge tearing through the remaining soldiers. The voltage on her katar must have been turned all the way up; any soldier that had the unfortunate luck of colliding with it didn’t get back to their feet once they were down. She cut herself a path toward Green, where a whole ring of soldiers worked to immobilize the Lion while the ship in the atmosphere drew closer._

_One of them saw Pidge._

_They raised a gun and aimed straight for her head, and Hunk didn_ _’t hesitate to fire._

_Another did the same, and Hunk repeated._

_Raise, fire. Raise, fire. Get Pidge to safety._

_All around him: red, red, red._

            The scenes before Hunk now weren’t just red—they were red-yellow-orange-purple-white as explosions went off around him, as Shiro and Black sidled up to Hunk and Yellow’s side, Black’s jaw-blade cutting down the incoming fighters.

            _“Hunk,”_ Shiro said, as though he’d been saying the name before. _“Are you alright?”_

            “About as much as I can be,” Hunk said, determined to force down the thoughts of Pidge being captured or dead because of his own failures.

            _Focus._

            _“Pidge, we’re about to touch down, we’re still taking on heavy fire,”_ Shiro said, just as Yellow landed, a jolt running through him. _“How are you doing?”_

            _“I’ve landed,”_ Pidge answered, _“but I’m not sure if I can leave Green just yet. I’ve got an entrance to my left, but there’s a whole group of soldiers blocking the way. I’m prepping to take them down.”_

            And half a minute later, take them down Pidge did. Yellow moved at Hunk’s command, until the door Green was presumably parked in front of came into view. Green and Yellow must have sent some sort of message to each other—Yellow linked up with Hunk, temporarily, and through Yellow’s eyes, Hunk better saw the shimmering outline of the Green Lion, prepared to pounce.

            Green then opened fire, mowing down the soldiers guarding the entrance with her vine cannon. Hunk grimaced and tore his eyes away, instead focusing on firing at the incoming fighters, whose pilots finally realized that something was up—that the Green Lion had gone invisible.

            _“Entrance is clear, but these fighters—”_

 _“Leave those to Coran and me,”_ Allura interrupted. _“We’re coming in to guard the Lions. You three need to get inside of that building and pull whatever information you can. If you can get through to Tarvin Three’s networks, even better. You_ must _act quickly._ _”_

            Great. Fine, that was fine.

            Hunk, Pidge, and Shiro would just have to exit their lions, enter a battlefield swarming with soldiers and fighter ships aiming to take them down, and then break into the political headquarters of one of their allies, without express permission, and then hack into their computer systems.

            Allura hadn’t told Chancellor Verna of this mission. Or any of their other allies. Going into the mission, the Paladins were running on the assumption that the Tarvin chain would have weak defenses at best, seeing as three of the four planets were under Galra occupation, Tarvin Four barely holding out. If they could get in, get their information, and get out before being noticed, then they could track down Keith all the easier.

            Entering the atmosphere had been a nightmare scenario, but this was Team Voltron.

            They should’ve been able to handle it.

            _“Hunk, are you ready?”_ Shiro called over the comms.

            Hunk’s bayard materialized in his hand. Hunk glanced down at it, squeezed his hand tighter around it, set his jaw and rose from his seat.

            “On your count.”

            _“Pidge?”_

            _“On you, Shiro.”_

            Shiro breathed in on his end of the comms, the breath sounding strangely choppy. Hunk’s heart twisted when he listened closer and heard the _“please let us get out of this alive”_ Shiro whispered underneath it.

            _“Alright team, let’s move.”_

            Yellow lowered his jaw to the ground and opened it up at Hunk’s coaxing, while Hunk ignored Yellow’s protests in his head that this clearly wasn’t safe, they should’ve been taking a different course of action, but no other course of action would allow them into the building.

            Hunk charged for the doors where he’d seen Pidge, shield activating on his arm, while soldiers and sentries still hanging around realized what was going on. Hunk braced himself for attack while Shiro fell into step beside him, a terse look passing between the two of them. One quick glance at Shiro’s face had the hand around Hunk’s heart squeezing harder.

            _“Hurry up!”_ Pidge urged, the first one to the doors. _“I need coverage if I’m getting these things open!”_

            “Leave that to me,” Shiro said. “We’re coming. Hang on.”

            Hunk and Shiro were upon Pidge within the next thirty seconds, Shiro coming up to Pidge’s side to aid in getting the door open while Hunk stood guard, bayard transforming into a cannon that he leveled at the fighter ships converging on them from the air, at the other soldiers and sentries making to surround them.

            This time, he fired before they did.

            One went down, another, body parts and robot hands flying, ship debris smashing down into the sides of the Eruda Center, the architecture holding.

            “Gotcha,” Pidge said, triumph just shy of dripping into her voice. The doors whooshed open, and Shiro and Pidge hurried inside, Hunk backing in after them. As soon as Hunk set foot in the building, Pidge beelined for the keypad at the wall, making to shut the doors again and cut off the fire from outside.

            Several of the soldiers and sentries still fighting back caught on and began hurling themselves at the door, and for a moment, Hunk was not standing in the Eruda Center. Hunk was back on Prince Lotor’s ship, futilely blasting away at a bay door while Lance watched his back. Hunk was back on Lotor’s ship, ushering Lance into the Blue Lion, while sentries choked the damaged entryway to the launch bay.

            _Fire away._

Hunk was raised pacifistic. He stayed away from violence where he could, and took up hobbies like baking instead of fighting, focused on his nurturing side where others would have been glad to let their anger explode. Still, he was no stranger to violence by any means—he knew when pacifism wouldn’t work. Others hadn’t known that about him. At the Garrison, he’d been bullied, for being soft where others were hard, for showing emotion where others were stony.

            He wondered what those kids would say if they could see him now.

            The doors shut, at long last, plunging Hunk, Pidge, and Shiro into darkness. The night vision on Hunk’s visor switched on, and he could make out Shiro’s form, creeping quietly down the apparent entry hall.

            “It’s so peaceful in here, compared to outside,” Pidge remarked in a whisper.

            “I don’t trust it,” Shiro replied at once, the usually-hard edge to his voice blunted by weariness. “Don’t let your guard down. If there’s information in here, they’ll be guarding it.”

            Hunk and Pidge followed Shiro to a door. Pidge had the door open in no time, making quick work of the computer system. The door opened into the main lobby of the Eruda Center, desks abandoned, ceiling lights blazing as though nothing were out of the ordinary. Hunk’s night vision switched off as he came to Shiro’s right, while Pidge flanked his left.

            “Where _is_ everyone?” Hunk whispered.

            _This is a trap._

            “Do you think this was what it was like for…for Lance and Keith?”

            Pidge forced herself to say the names, stumbling only momentarily.

            “We didn’t have any feeds of the rest of Tarvin Three’s embassy…but I’m willing to bet so,” Shiro replied, releasing a shaking breath. “I don’t like this.”

            “Everything about this screams _trap_ to me,” Hunk said.

            “Everyone, stick together,” Shiro said. “Allura, Coran, how are things looking out there?”

            _“We’re able to hold down the Lions for now,”_ Allura responded, voice tight. She grimaced, and in the background, Coran shouted something unintelligible. _“But we still have plenty of fighters coming in. Hurry.”_

            “We’ll do our best, Princess,” Shiro said.

            Shiro started forward again, Hunk raising his cannon, prepared to fire at a moment’s notice. They headed for the twisting stairwell they’d gone up the first time they were here. About halfway up, Hunk caught something in his periphery, the hair on the back of his neck standing up.

            “Shiro,” Hunk said, pausing in his movement. Shiro stopped, too, and, caught between the two of them, so did Pidge.

            “What?” Shiro asked.

            “I saw something. Someone—we’re not alone.”

            In one hand, Shiro’s bayard elongated into a sword, while his GalraTech hand glowed to life, Pidge inching away from it.

            Far down below, footsteps echoed.

            Shiro swore under his breath, hurrying up the stairs. “Come on. We need to move.”

            Pidge and Hunk followed suit, while the number of footsteps below grew louder, and began drawing closer—someone following them up the steps. Pidge’s bayard now, too, formed her weapon, her katar glowing green, clutched tightly in her right hand.

            “We’re going to be led straight into an ambush,” Hunk warned. “I can feel it. We have a course of action?”

            “Fight back as hard as you can, and get Pidge to a computer,” Shiro answered.

            “Cool, so no real plan. That works,” Hunk muttered to himself.

            Shiro sprinted for the chancery, Pidge shoving in front of him to hack the visitors’ log. Her fingers flew over the keypad; even as the door opened, she kept going.

            “What are you doing?” Shiro asked, urgently casting a glance over his shoulder, toward the top of the stairwell.

            “Wiping out our logs from last time we were here,” Pidge replied, fingers pounding harder at the keys, numbers and colors and letters flashing before her eyes, reflecting off of her visor.

            “Uh, guys,” Hunk said, looking beyond them both. “The chancery? It’s empty.”

            “Good,” Pidge responded without looking up. “I’m almost done, and then we’re barricading—”

            Pidge cut herself off with a yelp as something flew by her head. Hunk whipped around and didn’t even look before firing his cannon at their assailants—multiple sentries, and two soldiers. One soldier went down, leg blown out from underneath them. Then Hunk backed up in the doorway, while Shiro ripped Pidge away from the computer. Hunk shot the computer screen on his way into the chancery, the whole setup exploding in a shower of sparks.

            “Seal the door,” Shiro ordered, hustling down to Chancellor Verna’s normal desk. “Hunk, stand guard.”

            “Already on it,” Hunk said, blasting at the advancing enemies while Pidge destroyed the wiring of the keypad next to the door. The door fell down and clanged shut, sealing the team inside.

            For a few seconds, Pidge and Hunk both stared at the doors, before Pidge let her wrist drop to her side, and Hunk’s bayard returned to standard form and dematerialized, back into his suit storage.

            “That…was way too close,” Pidge said.

            “Yeah, but now how do we get _out?_ ” Hunk asked. “The computer system is fried.”

            “We’ll figure something out,” Pidge answered, turning away from Hunk and jogging over to meet Shiro at Chancellor Verna’s desk. “What’ve we got, Shiro?”

            “Not sure,” Shiro said. His brow furrowed as he stared at the screen, Pidge and Hunk crowding him, peering around arms and over shoulders.

            “Let me at it,” Pidge insisted, and Shiro stepped aside to let the youngest Paladin do her thing.

            Hunk and Shiro both watched her, Shiro resting a steady hand on Pidge’s shoulder. Hunk reached out for Shiro’s shoulder, and Shiro flinched at the contact, before relaxing and glancing at Hunk, a tight smile coming over his face.

            _So, so tired,_ Hunk thought, the bags under Shiro’s eyes clearly visible now.

            Hunk wondered if, like the rest of them, Shiro was lying about how many hours of rest he got.

            The wail of an alarm forced Hunk out of his thoughts, as the room around them turned red, and Pidge went rigid.

            “Pidge?” Shiro asked, while Hunk asked, “Pidge, what happened?”

            Pidge backed away from the computer, right into Hunk, who wrapped his arms around her out of instinct more than anything. He didn’t look down at her—he looked past her, at the computer screen, blood turning to ice in his veins.

            Around them, the Eruda Center shuddered violently.

            _“Paladins!”_ Allura shouted. _“What’s going on? All ships have suddenly diverted firepower to the Eruda Center—”_

            “We tried to get into the computer system,” Shiro interrupted. “It triggered some sort of signal, and a countdown—”

            “And we’ve sealed ourselves into the chancery,” Hunk finished. “We need a course of action _now._ ”

            The building groaned, the lights blinking out momentarily, the floor bucking the Paladins. Pidge stumbled in Hunk’s grasp, while Shiro braced an arm against the desk.

            Then the first of the ceiling panels fell to the floor and shattered.

            Then another.

            And another.

            Distant booms grew louder, as the Eruda Center continued to endure heavy fire from outside.

            “Get to the door, we need to leave!” Shiro shouted, and bolted, using his jetpack to steady himself. Pidge and Hunk followed suit, Hunk’s bayard rematerializing in his hand and returning to cannon form. He stopped a few feet away from the heavy metal door and began blasting away, the metal absorbing every hit.

            “Shiro—”

            Shiro grunted, cutting off Hunk as the Black Paladin stabbed at the door with his own bayard. When that failed, he attempted to use his GalraTech hand, to no avail—the hand collided with the door, neither budging, the door displaying no burn marks or scratches. Even Pidge gave it a go, her bayard clanging uselessly off the metal.

            “We’re trapped,” Pidge whispered, voice hollow. “I-It’s all my fault—”

            “No, it’s not your fault,” Shiro reassured her. “I led us in here. I ordered that door shut.”

            “We can assign blame later,” Hunk interrupted. “Right now, we need out.”

            _“Paladins! Where are you?”_ Allura shouted anxiously over the comms. _“The Eruda Center is being destroyed!”_

            “Still stuck in the chancery,” Hunk answered. “Allura, I don’t know—”

            Hunk cut himself off when a large portion of the chancery ceiling caved and fell to the floor, inches behind the group of Paladins trapped within its walls. More portions of the ceiling followed suit. Hunk winced and looked at Shiro, and the faraway look on his face as he gazed at Pidge and Hunk.

            _Yellow, please, if you can hear me,_ Hunk thought then, _we need you, buddy._

            From the holes in the ceiling, portions of other floors above the chancery rained down, in addition to the pieces of this ceiling still caving in. It was as though some dam had burst—before Hunk knew it, an onslaught was coming, and the Paladins were trapped right in the middle of it.

            “GET DOWN!” Hunk shouted, feet moving of their own accord as he threw himself down over Pidge, activated his shield, and hoped for the best. That seemed to jar Shiro back to reality—he lunged forward and threw himself over Hunk, activating his shield with one hand, his Galra hand blazing.

            He met Hunk’s gaze, gave him a terse nod, and then the rest of the ceiling rained down, and Hunk’s vision went dark.

* * *

            Catching Hunk when he fell from his pod was a team effort between Allura and Pidge.

            Falling out of the pod was a sensation Hunk rarely experienced.

            He didn’t have much of a reckless streak—the others had plenty of that for him. Team voice of reason, as usual. He was used to catching someone else when they came out of the pod. Being shown the same kind of care felt nice, albeit a bit disorienting.

            “What happened?” Hunk asked, as Allura and Pidge steadied him.

            “The Eruda Center was completely destroyed,” Allura said quietly, dodging his gaze. “The three of you very nearly were with it. Your Lions, thank the stars, came to your rescue, and allowed Coran and I to get to you and get you inside before the Galra could. You all were trapped beneath the rubble—although, Pidge was well off, thanks to you and Shiro.”

            At Shiro’s name, Hunk glanced over his shoulder at the pod next to his, where Shiro rested, eyes shut, face peaceful for the first time in a while.

            In the pod like this, Hunk could see Shiro’s youth shine through. He was older than the other Paladins, but couldn’t have been any older than twenty-five. But between the white forelock, the scar across his nose, his Galra arm, his perpetual worry lines—he always read more like a dad to Hunk. A battle-hardened soldier dad, but a dad nonetheless.

            _He_ _’s just like us,_ Hunk thought now. _Too young for this._

            “You and Shiro took the brunt of things,” Allura went on. “With your armor, your lives were spared, but the damage was done. You’ve been out for a little less than a quintant. In that time, we’ve received a signal from Central Command, not generated by Lotor.”

            That got Hunk’s attention.

            “A signal from Central Command?”

            “Yeah,” Pidge answered for Allura. “It’s from one of his officers. Her name is Mirak, and she’s with the Blade. She’s been keeping tabs on Lance.”

            Hope swelled in Hunk’s chest, and was quickly snuffed out by the look Allura gave him.

            “Did something happen to Lance?”

            Allura cut her eyes to Pidge, who winced and turned away, pretending to busy herself reading the vitals on Shiro’s pod.

            “Things aren’t looking good,” Allura answered. “Mirak attempted to contact us several times, beginning two quintants ago. Lance…has snapped, and Mirak has had no way to get him alone for an escape. He…”

            Allura didn’t finish her sentence.

            “Is he…is he hurt?”

            “No,” Allura answered finally. “Not…physically. Lotor’s officers attempted to take his life. Lotor saved him, and they’ve sent out orders to go after Keith, at Lance’s request. Lance seeks to kill Keith himself.”

            “He _what?_ ”

            “If we hadn’t gone into that battle, we could’ve been tracking Keith already,” Pidge said. “We have an updated lead on Keith. The Bovona System isn’t the system’s real name.”

            So much to process.

            “Hold on,” Hunk said, holding up a hand. “Let me—let me get dressed and eat something. Then—then we discuss this.”

            Hunk brushed past Allura and Pidge before they could say more to him, head swimming with the information he’d already taken in. There was a Marmorite on Lotor’s ship, keeping track of Lance. Lance snapped, and now wanted Keith dead. Keith wasn’t in the Bovona System. Err, he was, but it wasn’t the Bovona System. Or something.

            They could’ve known all of this sooner, could’ve been acting upon this, if they hadn’t nearly died on Tarvin Two.

            Hunk’s head hurt, and still, his heart hurt more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **HOUSEKEEPING**  
>  1\. I deleted _Drastic Measures, Final Straws, and Last Resorts_ because I hadn't worked on it in forever, and I didn't plan to basically until next summer. I also still didn't quite like the direction it was going, so I might just rewrite chapter one several more times and then post it next summer. I still have the file saved to my computer, so don't worry, I didn't lose it. But just in case you were wondering.  
>  2\. I still wanna aim for weekly uploads, life just kind of crashed into me at once, and also, I had trouble getting into Hunk's head. 
> 
> I had other stuff I was gonna add to the author notes but now I can't remember what. Something about season 4. I dunno. Again, I'm so sorry this took so long. The next chapter I've had a pretty good idea about for a while now, so expect that one sooner. I have a day off from school tomorrow, maybe I can get a decent chunk of it done. Maybe the whole thing, depending on my motivation. I dunno.
> 
> I'm gonna go finish BU: True Crime season 1 now, so goodbye!!


	18. The One in Which Keith Breaks Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith is sick and tired of being interrogated and forced to take weird space drugs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao what's an upload schedule

Chapter 18

            Keith spent the better part of an hour talking to Tiva about all that had happened. Keith confirmed that it had been roughly three weeks that he and Lance had been separated from each other and the team, about the same amount of time that it had been since Lotor ejected all of his hackers, from masters to mediocre, into space. The Red Paladin recounted every mishap that had occurred between then and now, from the trap set on Tarvin Three, all the way to getting shot down on this planet.

            “Yeah,” Tiva said, glancing around the cell block. “These guys don’t trust anyone, but especially not the Galra. I tried to explain that I was with the Blade. They didn’t believe me, but I get the feeling that they don’t care very much for the Blade, either.”

            Oh. Good to know. Two lines Keith had direct connections to. No big deal.

            “I don’t know why they locked _you_ up,” Tiva added, eyes settling back on Keith. “You’d think being a Paladin and all, they’d have taken you in for questioning and then released you. Or left you in a med bay, instead of the cell.”

            Keith shrugged, looking down at the cuffs around his wrists.

            “I mean, this is the best I’ve had it in a while, if I’m being honest,” he said. “Aside from this raging headache.”

            The entire hour he’d spent talking, his head had been throbbing painfully, a reminder of how sick he was after everything he’d endured thus far. It didn’t help that at some point, his ears had begun ringing and hadn’t stopped. Several times while he was talking he’d trailed off, just to shut his eyes and breathe.

            “They really did a number on you, huh,” Tiva remarked. “What was their end goal?”

            Again, Keith shrugged. “Their orders changed. Lotor couldn’t decide whether or not he wanted me alive. But then La—”

            Keith stopped speaking as the door to the cell block opened on loud hinges, a few official-looking aliens with badges and slim guns entering. These aliens appeared to be some sort of human-insect hybrid; they were taller than Keith, and probably taller than Lance or Shiro. Their skin, instead of brownish hues ranging from cream to onyx, rested somewhere in the green end of the spectrum, from seafoam to deep aqua, from pistachio to jungle floor. Their eyes had no pupils, just deep red sclerae. They had antennae for ears, antennae that twitched in Keith’s direction when he so much as breathed. A distinct nose was absent from each of them, though Keith made out slits in the general vicinity of where a nose would be. Their mouths were small, two small tusks jutting out at either end.

            “You,” a lighter one of them said, pointing one of four slim fingers at Keith.

            Tiva watched this with boredom, not the least bit put off by the aliens’ appearance and demeanor.

            “Come with us,” a slightly darker of them said, approaching Keith’s cell door and unlocking it.

            Keith counted five of them, and decided that with his injuries, and the fact that Tiva didn’t look the least bit afraid of these things, or afraid for Keith, that it was pointless to try and resist. He let one of the aliens take him by the arm and lead him out of the cell block, the others continued on through, presumably making the daily rounds.

            The alien led Keith down a narrow hallway. It didn’t glance down at him, or even act as though he were there. No small talk. No acknowledgments. Keith didn’t even get a name before the alien stopped before a door and unlocked it, dumping Keith unceremoniously inside before shutting it once more.

            “Hey—!”

            Keith surged to his feet, bringing his cuffed hands against the door. “Where are you going?!”

            _“Red Paladin,”_ a robotic voice called.

            Keith whipped around, eyes latching onto a speaker in the ceiling. He backed against the door, holding his cuffed wrists out in front of him, hands balled into fists. Restrained or not, he’d still put up a fight if he had to. For now, though, the only thing he appeared to be fighting was an empty room.

            _“Red Paladin,”_ the voice repeated, _“step forward. Come to the wall before you.”_

            Keith hesitated. There was nothing in this room, save for the speaker, and dim lights in the ceiling. The entire room was made of the same sleek, shiny metal. He didn’t know what to expect when his feet finally moved beneath him, and he stood in front of the empty wall, but then part of the wall retracted, and seconds later, a clawed metal hand came out, followed by another. One hand lashed out before Keith could react and wrapped around his wrist.

            “What’s going on?” Keith demanded, trying and failing to jerk his wrist out of the claw’s grasp.

            _“Relax,”_ the voice ordered, monotonous as ever. Keith eyed the second clawed hand warily, heart hammering away in his chest as it brought something that looked like a pointy key toward the handcuffs.

            _“Do not move.”_

            Keith stayed still as the claw inserted the key-needle-thing into some small slot on his cuffs. The cuffs clicked and released, and the claw snatched them up before they could hit the floor. The claw retracted, back into the wall, and only once it was away did the first claw let go of Keith. Keith ripped his arm away and scrambled back, tripping over his own feet and falling on his ass.

            “What the _hell is happening?_ ” Keith shouted to the speaker. “What do you want with me?”

            _Sim,_ a voice in the back of Keith’s head warned. _You never truly got free. You_ _’re still in the lab. This is another test. Wake up, Keith._

            _No,_ Keith snapped back at the voice. _I escaped. This is real. I—_

Did he really?

            _You saw Lance. The Morse code. That was real, that happened. You are not in a simulation._

            _You are wide awake._

            _“Come to the wall before you,”_ the voice said, either ignoring or incapable of answering Keith’s questions.

            “I was just over there,” Keith protested.

            _“Come to the wall before you.”_

            This robot did not, apparently, care for Keith’s refusal. Keith staggered back to his feet and stood his ground, eyes slowly scanning the room and landing on a camera in one of the corners, where the walls met the ceiling. A glance to the other wall yielded the same result, as did glances to the two corners behind him.

            “Why won’t you tell me what you want with me?” Keith asked.

            _“Come to the wall before you.”_

            Maybe in some show of a truce, at this command, a square hole in the wall opened up. A small tray slowly slid out from it, a glass of some blue-purple liquid sitting on top of it.

            _“Come to the wall before you, and drink the contents of this glass.”_

            “No,” Keith said, shaking his head and backing toward the door. “I don’t trust this. Let me out of here.”

            Keith’s back hit metal, and he reached behind himself, blindly groping for some sort of trigger to get the door open.

            _“This glass contains a fast-acting medicine for your injuries and current illness,”_ the voice said, still monotone. _“At your current rate, if you do not drink these contents, you will die in no less than one Earth week. Come to the wall before you, and drink the contents of this glass.”_

            This time, Keith’s refusal died in the back of his throat.

            Keith now had two scenarios before him. The first was that this robot voice was lying to him, doing whatever it could to get him to comply with orders. The second was that this thing was telling the truth, that either in the lab or in his various escapes from captivity, he’d picked up some deadly disease.

            “Stop playing mind games,” Keith said. “Just tell me what I’m here for.”

            _“Come to the wall before you, and drink the contents of this glass.”_

            Keith didn’t see any reason for the people in this place to lie to him, but then again, he also didn’t see any reason for them to stick him in a room, alone, with a disembodied voice giving him orders. Not unless they were going to kill him without any witnesses. And what better way to do it than to force him to poison himself?

            “I don’t want to,” Keith said.

            _“Come to the wall before you, and drink the contents of this glass, or else you will die within seven Earth days.”_

            Another week, maximum, that he had to live. Would he be back with the team by then?

            _Not if you_ _’re dead before that._

            _Unless you_ _’re being lied to._

            “If this thing kills me,” Keith said, stalking forward, glancing between the two cameras in the corners he was approaching, “you’re going to have some _very_ angry Paladins on your hands.”

            The robotic voice didn’t deign to respond this time. Keith picked up the glass and inspected the liquid. From this close, Keith could see that it was thicker than he’d expected, and glittered faintly in the light, almost as though someone had ground up stars and sprinkled them inside.

            _I better not regret this,_ Keith thought, and knocked the drink back, trying his best not to breathe or taste it as it went down his throat. He set the glass down on the tray, and the tray retracted back into the wall while every one of Keith’s senses seemed to fire off at once. His skin lit with a burning sensation, worse than it had been before, the silence of the room somehow amplifying, his nose sharper, his eyesight sharper, the taste of the medicine harshly bitter on his tongue.

            “What the _fuck,_ ” Keith whispered, sinking to his knees, hugging himself tightly as a chill settled over him. Where his head had been pounding before, it now felt as though his brain were trying to break free of his skull, a caged animal in need of escape. He screwed his eyes shut in an attempt to shut out the light, to ease his pain, but it did no such thing.

            _“Rise, Paladin,”_ the robotic voice ordered.

            “Fuck you,” Keith muttered back at it.

            _I shouldn_ _’t have drank it. I’m gonna die. That was poison._

            After a handful of weeks spent in a lab being injected with strange substances, he should’ve known better; shouldn’t had listened to the strange, disembodied robot voice; should’ve stood his ground.

            _“Rise, Paladin,”_ the robot voice repeated. _“It is time for questioning.”_

            Questioning?

            Hadn’t he already been through enough interrogation?

            “I can answer your questions just fine from the floor,” Keith said, and found that speaking more than two words made his throat hurt, more so than it already had.

            _“Rise, Paladin. Allow your friends to see your face and hear your voice.”_

            _Friends?_

            Keith’s head snapped up at that, pain lancing through his skull.

            “W-What? The others are here?” Keith asked the robotic voice.

            _“Rise, Paladin.”_

            This time, Keith complied with the order, body moving before he could truly will it. He was halfway to his feet when unease hit him, a fleeting feeling that retreated almost immediately, but it was enough to spark his rational side back to life.

            _If the others were here, wouldn_ _’t these people let you out? Or wouldn’t the others try and break in here and rescue you themselves?_

Keith rose to full height anyway and swept his eyes around the room again. Same metal. Same cameras. Same spot in the wall that had been open before, now sealed up, almost as though the opening had never been there at all. Same door, taunting him, dangling the futility of an escape attempt over his head.

            _“Paladin,”_ the voice said now, _“what is your full name?”_

            “Kei—”

            Keith cut himself off, taken aback by how effortlessly his name nearly rolled off of his tongue. The words still yearned to spill out of him, caught in the back of his throat, pushing their way forward. Keith swallowed, a poor attempt to keep them at bay, as though swallowing would really do much for him. As soon as he opened his mouth to breathe, “Keith Kogane” tumbled out of him.

            The room was silent for a moment, before an alarm screeched from the speaker overhead, and the robot voice said, _“What is your full name?”_

            “I just told you,” Keith insisted, and added, “My name is _Keith Kogane._ ”

            _Why the fuck did you just repeat it?!_

            Keith bit his tongue as he waited for a response from the robot voice, the ache in his head sharpening, his stomach roiling, his palms turning clammy.

            _“What is your first, middle, and last name?”_

            “Keith Akira Koga—stop that!”

            Keith clamped his hands over his mouth, the sensation of skin on skin eliciting a whimper of pain from him that he failed to suppress.

            _“What is your first, middle, and last name? State these things, lest your friends suffer consequences for your inaction.”_

            “No,” Keith muttered behind his hand, followed up by “Keith Akira Kogane.”

            There was no way the others were here and about to be hurt. That meant they’d been captured in battle, and if they were captured in battle, they’d likely gone toe to toe with Lotor’s forces…and lost. And if they lost, then they were trapped, and if they hadn’t yet rescued Lance— _Lance told them to go after you first, selfless asshole_ —then Lance was still with Lotor…

            “Let me talk to my friends,” Keith said, dropping his hands back to his sides and curling them into fists, eyes seeking out one of the cameras in the room. “Let me out of here and let me see them.”

            _“What is every official title you have ever held in your life?”_

            Keith’s repeated _let me out_ faltered, giving way to his answer to the question, one that came without thinking.

            “Galaxy Garrison fighter pilot. Temporary Black Paladin of Voltron. Member of the Blade of Marmora. Currently the Red Paladin of Voltron. Why am I saying these things?”

            _Think, Keith._

Even the very idea of thinking sent another flare of pain through his head.

            _“Voltron has affiliations with the Blade of Marmora, correct?”_

            “Y—why do you need to know?”

            _They don_ _’t like the Blade._

            _“If you do not answer the question, we will harm one of your friends.”_

            Keith hesitated. The voice offered no proof that the others were here, or that it even knew their names. And yet, Keith still couldn’t stomach the thought of one of them hurt. His mind flashed back, for a few brief seconds, to the nightmares and hallucinations he’d endured back in the lab. Hunk screaming and Pidge crying and Shiro desperate to save his team and Allura berating him and Lance hurt, Lance dead by Keith’s hand, Lance grinning while watching the life wink out of Keith’s eyes—

            “Yes,” Keith blurted, where he’d meant to demand proof that these people had his friends.

            _“Who else is allied with Voltron?”_

            Keith set his jaw, fighting against the words attempting to make their way out of him.

            _Truth serum,_ the thought hit Keith then, a bright light cutting through the fog in his brain. Whether the substance he’d drank was purely truth serum, or truth serum mixed in with some sort of medicine, or maybe something to screw with his senses and throw him off-balance, he wasn’t sure. But the serum was definitely present—it was no wonder his answers came immediately, with no thought, even as Keith tried to resist saying them.

            “Not you,” Keith answered at last.

            The next question didn’t come right away.

            “Prove you have my friends,” Keith called out, when the voice didn’t pester him further. He settled his gaze on one of the cameras and stalked toward it. “You claim you have my friends. Prove it.”

            _“Select a number, one through seven.”_

            _Seven?_

            If the team had come to rescue him, that would’ve been Shiro, Hunk, Pidge, Allura, and Coran…

            Five.

            Even if they’d attacked Central Command and rescued Lance, that was six. Did that number include himself, then?

            Why would whoever was in charge of interrogating him count him?

            _Think. Ignore the fact that your brain wants to exit your head. Where would they get their information from? How would they know there are seven of you? Which chain of planets does this hellscape have a connection to?_

“Five,” Keith answered.

            After a few seconds of delay, garbled audio filtered into the room, something that sounded indistinctly like Keith himself. Words mixed up, pitches raised and lowered, until only there was only noise, almost as though he were in distress. Keith listened for a few moments, a smile coming over his face.

            _Theory confirmed._

            Whoever was conducting this interrogation was just pulling and remixing audio from the recordings at the Eruda Center, where Keith had been the fifth person on the team to step up and identify himself.

            _“Very astute, Paladin,”_ a new voice said—one that came across as a real person, and not a robot. Keith watched a section of one of the walls shimmer, metal giving way to a window. Through the window, Keith saw a desk, pushed against the other side of the wall, where three of the insect-humanoid aliens—Ruovin natives, if Keith wasn’t mistaken—stared back at him, red eyes unblinking.

            _“You have seen through our tests,”_ the leftmost Ruovin said. This one’s skin shone vibrant green, almost like an emerald, compared to the center one with mint-colored skin, and the rightmost one who appeared more chartreuse than anything.

            _“Humans are not meant to break through our truth serum so easily,”_ the center one remarked.

            Keith’s triumph faded as he listened to the aliens, smile dropping from his face.

            _“You are the Galra-Paladin, are you not?”_ the rightmost alien asked.

            Distracted, Keith couldn’t stop himself, and answered, “Yes.”

            He winced. The aliens looked between each other, before the center one leveled their gaze at Keith.

            _“And how have you managed to infiltrate the ranks of the Paladins?”_

            Keith bit his tongue this time, his hasty defense never making it past his lips. He shut his eyes and breathed deeply, _patience yields focus, you have to focus,_ and opened his eyes again, rolled his shoulders, and met the gaze of the center alien head-on.

            “Why am I here?”

            The aliens glanced at each other, muttering something in their own language that their mics—if they had mics at all—barely picked up on. Keith shifted on his feet, watching the three Ruovins deliberate between themselves on how to answer Keith’s question.

            _“You were aboard a Galra ship, were you not?”_ the leftmost Ruovin finally answered, and _dammit,_ they answered in a freaking question. Keith didn’t stop his own reply this time, sharp and to the point: “Yeah, as a _prisoner._ ”

            The three Ruovins exchanged glances once more, clearly displeased with Keith’s attitude. Then the rightmost Ruovin leaned forward, raising nonexistent eyebrows at Keith.

            _“If you were a prisoner, clearly you had done something wrong. In any capacity, we on this planet do not take kindly to outsiders in our airspace without express permission.”_

“I didn’t _want_ to be here!” Keith shouted. “I’m a Paladin of Voltron, and I need to find my way back to my friends—who you _don_ _’t_ have trapped here. Please, help me get into contact with them, and then I’ll be gone.”

            The aliens barely considered his words before the center one stood up, palms of their four-fingered hands slamming against the table they sat at. Keith refrained from flinching, staring down the Ruovin.

            _“Voltron has allied itself with Chancellor Verna of Tarvin, has it not? Chancellor Verna and Tarvins One, Two, and Four have left us here to rot. Any friend of Voltron is no friend of ours. Especially not a friend whose blood runs with the same blood in the veins of the Emperor,”_ the Ruovin said.

            Of course.

            Of course it came down to that, came down to what Keith’s blood pumped with, rather than what it ran for. Familiar aches rose up, ones Keith had worked for a long time to shut down. He stood silently, fists clenching and unclenching at his side as he evened out his breaths.

            _Patience._

            Every last ounce of patience Keith possessed wore thinner and thinner with each passing moment, as he ground out, “Then _why am I being questioned?_ Why keep me in here?”

            Once again, the aliens passed indecipherable looks between each other, and Keith wondered if maybe they were communicating telepathically. Something he’d need to look into, once he found a way out of this cell-room-bunker-whatever it was.

            _“For one, a dead prisoner is useless to us. We scarcely have the means here to dispose of bodies, and it’s quite a messy business. Without the medicine, you would have died within one Earth week,”_ the center Ruovin answered.

            Keith ignored the implication that these aliens meant to keep him here for far longer than one week. His mind jumped somewhere else entirely—

* * *

             _Lance held fast to Keith_ _’s arm with an iron grip, despite the fact that Keith couldn’t swing out at him anymore, not when his hands were cuffed behind his back. Regardless, Keith almost felt himself relaxing with Lance behind him, to guard him if something were to go wrong._

_Almost._

_“You could kill me,” Keith suggested with a glare, upping the ante on his whole role of ‘defiant prisoner.’_

 _Lotor seemed too nonchalant when he replied, opting to glance down at his nails—claws?—before raising his head back up and meeting Keith_ _’s gaze, a lazy grin on his face._

_“Nonsense. A dead prisoner is a useless one, if I haven’t yet gotten what I want.”_

 _The glare dropped from Keith_ _’s face as his features softened, before he could stop it from happening. Behind him, Lance shifted, and the grip he had on Keith’s arm tightened. Keith resisted the urge to step back and press against him, if for no other reason than to reassure himself that he wasn’t alone in fighting this one out. That he wasn’t alone, period. No matter what, Lance had his back._

* * *

 _Keith curled in on himself, every moment of the fight leading up to now replaying in his head, each one of his errors crisp and clear now. Each misstep, each wrong swipe, every stumble. And now he was going to pay for it with his life. The gladiator Galra stood over his vulnerable form, prepping to take him out. Keith was fairly certain Lance was muttering something frantically—he might_ _’ve been running, but Keith wasn’t sure at this point. He tried to latch onto his voice, a small comfort in the end—_

_“Stop the fight!”_

_“What…?” Keith couldn’t help the incredulous utterance that came out of him. Weak, drained from exhaustion and blood loss and every blow he’d sustained, Keith couldn’t even raise his head to look at the prince, whom he imagined to be standing at the edge of his dais._

“Did Lotor just call off the fight?”

 _Lance_ _’s voice was too loud in his ear, but it was_ Lance, _and Keith would take that anchor._

Yes, _Keith wanted to say, and the realization would_ _’ve knocked him over if he were standing on his feet. He laughed, a noise closer to a cough than anything as blood came up, spattering his lips and the ground nearby. He’d never been in true danger._

_“A dead prisoner…useless…,” Keith rasped, struggling to stay awake as dark spots dotted his vision. “He wants me alive…”_

 _Dead prisoners would go forgotten, eventually, names and faces lost to the past, among a sea of aliens captured and tortured and killed by the Empire. But live prisoners? Especially a prisoner like_ him? _Keep them around, beat them up, make an example of them._ This will happen to you, if you step even one toe out of line.

            _Keith continued laughing, choking, and Lance never replied._

* * *

             _“Secondly,”_ the aliens continued, and Keith gasped as he came back to reality. The aliens paused in their explanation, as if just now realizing that Keith’s mind had disappeared in the last few minutes.

            _“Secondly,”_ the center Ruovin repeated, _“we may as well get information where we can. In this instance, it is information from you, Paladin. Once we’re done here, you’ll be returned to your cell.”_

            _Something isn_ _’t right,_ the thought occurred to Keith, as the Ruovins studied his reactions.

            They knew his name and his role in this war before he could tell them, with information pulled from the Eruda Center. On Tarvin Two. That was the only way they managed to get the recordings of his voice, and presumably, of his friends’ voices. Why have those, if they were so against Tarvin Two and the Chancellor? And if they were in league with Tarvin Three, why shoot down Galra ships? Weren’t the Galra allied with Tarvin Three?

            The dull throbbing in Keith’s head sharpened to a point.

            “Tell me who you’re really allied with,” Keith commanded, shifting his gaze between the three aliens behind the glass.

            To them, it seemed an abrupt subject change, until the rightmost alien grinned at him. _“You disbelieve our sincerity.”_

            Keith didn’t respond, and the rightmost alien took it as an opening to continue. _“We are not allied with anyone but ourselves. We take what we can when we can get it—I presume you think of the Eruda Center recordings. Those were taken from Tarvin Two by the Galra, passed along to Tarvin Three, and spread throughout the system. Everyone here knows the identities of the Paladins of Voltron, and knows that they have sided with the Chancellor.”_

            And the Bovona-Bolza-whatever System hated the powers on Tarvin Two.

            No matter which way Keith ran, everyone would be out to get him, unless he ran into another member of the Obscurities…and they _didn_ _’t_ feel inclined to sell him out.

            “I didn’t,” Keith replied, finally.

            _“Excuse us?”_ the center Ruovin asked.

            “I didn’t trust the Tarvinians,” Keith said. “That was all decided by—” Keith winced “—the Black and Pink Paladins.”

            No, Keith didn’t trust the Tarvinians when they touched down on that planet, but he hadn’t fought Shiro or Allura or anyone else on the decision to trust them and enter the Eruda Center. Hadn’t fought them when they were in official talks to establish the alliance. Hadn’t fought when Shiro sent him and Lance to go check out what was going on on Tarvin Three.

            These people didn’t know that. Or shouldn’t have.

            _“But your loyalty still lies with Voltron, does it not?”_

            “I don’t know,” Keith answered immediately, eyes widening at his own response.

            It should’ve been a resounding _yes,_ in his heart, and a hastily-crafted _I_ _’m not sure_ leaving his mouth, but the _I don_ _’t know_ echoed through his whole being.

            Where _did_ his loyalty lie?

            Wasn’t he loyal to the Paladins? To Allura and Coran? They were his family, the only one he had left, and he’d defend them to his grave. So why had he answered like that?

            To Keith’s surprise—and mild horror—the three Ruovins merely smiled at each other at his response.

            _“You don’t trust Voltron,”_ the center one said, leveling their gaze at Keith while his skin crawled. _“But you don’t trust the Empire, either. You’re much like us.”_

 _I_ do _trust Voltron,_ Keith thought defensively, but didn’t let that thought leave him.

            _“Your questioning, for now, is over with. Someone will be back to escort you—”_

            Keith didn’t let the Ruovin finish that thought. The moment he noticed the wall start to shimmer, and the glass began to fade away, Keith lunged, aching body protesting at the sudden surge in adrenaline, in physical activity, and he propelled himself straight through the glass, using his foot to kick it in and shatter it.

            The Ruovins all yelped at Keith’s sudden appearance on top of the table they’d all been sitting at, chairs flying back, the leftmost Ruovin so surprised that they fell over with their seat.

            Keith used their shock to his advantage and broke for the door to this room, and much to his relief, this one opened up when he punched the button next to it.

            The narrow hallway, as it had been before, was empty, save for Keith. Moments later, the three Ruovins stumbled out of the room after him, screaming for backup. Keith’s heart pounded painfully in every inch of him as he sprinted for the cell block. After a while, a loud alarm began shrieking overhead, and Keith thanked every higher power in existence that this place didn’t install flashing lights to go along with it, because he was disoriented enough.

            Keith entered the cell block to bewildered looks from the many prisoners housed here, and instinct drove him toward Tiva’s cell. He had no key to unlock it and no weapon to shatter it. He settled for kicking it with whatever energy he had left until the lock gave way, and he had no time to stare in awe and realize what he’d just done.

            “Free the other prisoners,” he told Tiva, as soon as she got the door open, as wardens charged into the room. “I’ll meet up with you again soon.”

            “And where are you going?” Tiva asked, slightly dazed as she stepped out of her cell.

            Keith glanced over his shoulder at the wardens moving in. “I’m gonna go raise hell.”

            “Don’t be cryptic!” Tiva snapped, hand wrapping around Keith’s wrist and jerking him back before he could make another break, back for the halls.

            Keith hissed at the contact, skin still too sensitive for touch, especially touch as harsh as this. Tiva didn’t bat an eye, jaw set as she waited for a response.

            “I don’t know—I’m gonna go steal whatever I can,” Keith said, and wrenched his arm away. “Probably gonna set up a few explosives to cover your exit. Move fast.”

            Tiva glared, apparently unsatisfied the response, but not willing to waste the energy to hold Keith back again.

            “And how do I unlock these?” she called after his retreating form.

            “Kick them! I don’t know!” Keith responded, spinning around once to give her another look, before righting himself and evading several wardens coming his way. He ducked underneath the first one, and swept a leg underneath the second, who toppled into the third. Keith leapt over fallen tangles of bodies and limbs, stumbling only momentarily, adrenaline combining with the medicine in the truth serum, keeping him on his feet.

            Keith slammed a fist into the buttons on almost every door in this hall, opening all of them, ducking in none—nearly every one resembled an office or computer station, and he didn’t have time to rifle through desks or decode messages. Not when there were a growing number of people after him.

            Keith ended up choosing a room that looked like it contained chemicals—shelves full of strange bottles and beakers lined the walls. He ducked inside and gathered as many bottles and beakers into his arms as he could without jarring things, or getting them mixed up. The labels were all unreadable, but Keith knew which symbols meant _certain death, don_ _’t fuck with this._

            He threw the first of those containers at the warden who entered the room after him, and the bottle exploded in their face, shrapnel and pieces of alien flying across the room. Keith realized his mistake too late, as pieces of shrapnel struck other bottles.

            “Shit, shit, _shit,_ ” Keith hissed under his breath, breaking for the door. He’d just stepped out into the hall when a chain of explosions went off, completely destroying the room and throwing Keith forward. He let go of the other bottles in his hand as he flew, and they dropped behind him.

            Seconds later, another chain of explosions went off, just as Keith scrambled back to his feet. This time, he slammed into the wall, and crumpled onto the floor, vision blacking out, adrenaline still trying to get him moving again.

            Nobody seemed to pay him mind while this end of the building practically exploded. Wardens tripped over themselves to get out of the way before they could die, while prisoners rushed out of the cell block and straight into the wreckage, screaming like banshees. Some of them tripped over Keith, while others made a point to kick at him and keep him down and out of their ways. Eventually, a pair of arms hefted him up.

            “I can’t believe you,” Tiva muttered, tossing Keith over her shoulder like he were no more than a sack of flour. “Would you stop trying to die?”

            “Can’t help it,” Keith muttered with a groan.

            He clung to consciousness as Tiva sprinted through the halls, expertly dodging the wardens.

            “We’re almost out,” Tiva said. “Hang in there.”

            Keith grunted, an acknowledgment of her words. He wasn’t sure how much longer Tiva ran for, until he breathed fresh air, and the ground changed from metal to stone, until the shrieking of the wardens stopped echoing so violently in his ears.

            “Did you have a plan, or are we winging this?” Tiva asked.

            “My train of thought the past couple weeks has been _hijack a ship,_ but as you can see, I haven’t really gotten around to it,” Keith answered, bitter laughs turning into coughs.

            “Well, it’s your lucky day,” Tiva said.

            Keith barely raised his head in time to see the ship before Tiva boarded.

            “Can you stand?” Tiva asked.

            “I think?”

            “You’re gonna have to.”

            Tiva dropped Keith back to his feet without warning. He staggered a few feet before regaining his balance, and in that time, Tiva had knocked out the two aliens trying to defend their ship.

            “Seal the door,” Tiva ordered. “I’m going to make sure the back is clear.”

            Tiva darted toward the cargo hold of the ship, while Keith threw himself into the empty pilot’s seat. These labels all seemed to be nonverbal, making it that much easier for Keith to find the button that controlled the hatch. He shut it, and watched each painstaking second as it drew up, cutting off frantic wardens trying to reach him and Tiva.

            “We clear?” Keith called back.

            “Appears to be that way! Let’s get out of here!” Tiva shouted in reply.

            “Alright!”

            Keith turned back toward the controls, punching buttons on instinct more than anything. The engine revved, and Keith smiled, despite the hell he’d been through to get him to this point. His feet met pedals, and his fingers wrapped around the stick shift in front of him.

            “Wasn’t the best fighter pilot in the Garrison for nothing,” he muttered, and slammed his foot down. The ship jolted forward, speeding down the airstrip it rested on, and with a punch to one of the controls, the ship began its ascent.

            Tiva came up behind Keith and sat down in the copilot’s chair, fingers working away at something.

            “What’re you doing?” Keith asked, noting the wardens down below as they made for their own ships.

            “Trying to see if I can get communications on this thing up and running, so we can get a distress signal out,” Tiva answered.

            A distress signal.

            One that would hopefully reach the castle, one they’d hopefully respond to. Keith remembered the screens in the castle pinging with signal after signal, too many for the team to answer. Would they notice this one, another blip on the screen? If they noticed, would they realize the location? Would they come for him? Or would they forget and overlook it in favor of something seemingly more pressing?

            “Shit,” Tiva muttered.

            Keith flicked his eyes over to her console, where an error message blinked on the screen.

            “This system has incoming and outgoing transmissions jammed,” Tiva explained, catching Keith’s gaze. “Or at least, the area around this planet does.”

            Keith narrowed his eyes and brought them forward again, to the open sky ahead. By the time the wardens got into their ships, Keith planned on being long gone, far enough away that they wouldn’t be able to shoot him down. He’d be a little more cautious than the Galra had been. Eventually, they’d be away from this planet, and soon enough, the Bovona System entirely.

            “We’ll be out of here soon,” Keith said, and grit his teeth. “Just hang on.”

            Keith pushed the stick shift forward, pressed harder on the pedals, and pressed a few of the keys on the pads in front of him. The ship’s engine growled, the craft picking up speed, soaring higher into the atmosphere, and off Keith and Tiva went. Away from Ruovi. Speeding through the Bovona System. Back to freedom.

            Back to the team. Back _home._            

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told myself I couldn't watch the newest episode of BU: Supernatural until this was done. And, well...it's done!! Finally!!
> 
> Anyway I have no idea when the next chapter will be and I'm only 90% certain that the next chapter focuses on who I'm currently planning for it to focus on, so uh...see you in the next one?


	19. The One in Which Team Voltron Follows the Lead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hunk and Shiro get filled in on what they missed, and Team Voltron follows its lead on Keith.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's 4:11 AM and i have to be awake for school in less than two hours but i wanted to finish this bc hot damn, i have up through chapter 21 plotted (i spent psych the other day plotting, and then in school...well, yesterday, technically...i wrote like 20% of this chapter, hashtag progress)

Chapter 19

            Hunk pushed the food goo around on his plate as he listened to Allura and Pidge recount everything that they’d discovered over the course of the day while he healed in the pod, how they’d gotten into contact with Mirak, the last surviving Blade member from Lotor’s purge aboard his ship, and everything she’d explained to them thus far.

            “The Bovona System isn’t even called the Bovona System,” Pidge said absently. She sat cross-legged on the countertop in the kitchen, bent over her laptop, typing away while Allura looked over her shoulder. “It’s apparently some slang word on Tarvin Three that means something about luck, or being lucky. When Tarvin Three took over the Bovona System, over two hundred _years_ ago, they renamed it that to cover up its existence. They spread that name through the galaxy, so no one could use its true name to find its location.”

            Hunk nodded, scooping up a piece of goo and inspecting it, before frowning at it and setting it back down.

            “And what’s the system’s real name?” he asked.

            “The Bolza System,” Pidge answered. “Keith was being kept on a planet called Ven.”

            Hunk stilled, setting his spork down. Pidge watched him, raising her eyebrows and cocking her head, as though she were waiting for him to form some connection. Behind her, Allura grimaced, tight-lipped, and dropped her eyes back down to the screens, scanning over whatever was on there.

            “Bolza-Ven,” Hunk said, and Pidge nodded slowly. “That was the interrogation level Lotor wanted to use on Keith when he was on his ship.”

            “Mmhmm,” Pidge said. “The Bolza System is all illegal trade and that sort of stuff, and one of the defining features is a large concentration of scientists performing illegal research on unwilling test subjects. Slave trade, basically. Puzza brought Keith there in hopes of bringing in money to Tarvin Three, and she exposed him as, quote, _the Paladin who_ _’s part Galra._ ”

            Allura’s gaze darkened.

            “The people took an interest,” she went on for Pidge. “Keith ended up in one of their labs, tortured for information. He made an escape, only to be recaptured by the Galra, and shot down on a planet called Ruovi, where Lotor’s forces have yet to go in for reconnaissance. That was two quintants ago. We’ve no leads after that.”

            “ _And_ ,” Pidge continued, “because Mirak isn’t very good at hacking, not like Tiva was, we don’t have any recordings pulled from the security cameras in the lab. All we have are two videos from when Lotor himself established a transmission. The first is in the lab, right before Keith escaped, and the second is when he was recaptured and on a Galra prison ship. Lance is in that one.”

            Pidge turned her laptop around and played both videos for Hunk. Hunk winced as the scientists shocked Keith into silence, as one of them slapped him in the face. It didn’t help that Keith wasn’t exactly the picture of perfect health to begin with. Hunk noted the awful patterns of scars, burns, and bruises along the Red Paladin’s skin, of the dark rings beneath his eyes. And Keith was definitely skinnier than he’d been the last time Hunk had seen him…how long ago? Three weeks now?

            _“Is it the Paladins?”_ one of the scientists on the laptop asked, after a boom that Hunk hardly heard.

            Hunk’s fists clenched on their own as Lotor spoke, explaining that the Paladins were busy—likely locked in battle over one of the many planets the Empire took over in the wake of Lance and Keith’s kidnapping. Hunk gasped when Lotor then ordered Keith’s death, and the scientists darted about the room, one of them yelling for another to get some serum ready. It was at that moment the door opened, and a group of humanoid aliens charged into the room.

            “Who are they?” Hunk asked.

            “Freedom fighters,” Pidge answered. “According to Mirak, they’re a small group called the Bovona Obscurities. They fell out with the Blade like, sixty years ago, and as far as I know, they don’t have any connection to the group Matt’s with.”

            Hunk furrowed his brow.

            “But if they rescued him…how did he get recaptured?”

            “That’s what we don’t know,” Pidge said, pushing up her glasses. “Obviously _something_ happened between breaking out of the lab and ending up on the prison ship. We just don’t know whether they got captured too, and were taken away to cells, or if they sold Keith out, or if Keith got away on his own…there aren’t _endless_ possibilities, exactly, but there are a decent number.”

            “If they’re freedom fighters…they wouldn’t hand him back over, would they?” Hunk said.

            Pidge shrugged, shooting a glance at Allura. Allura pursed her lips, her own brow furrowed in thought.

            “There’s no telling, really,” she said slowly. “The Bolza System is a system that operates entirely on illegality—the definitions of right and wrong are skewed or sometimes discarded completely. If the Obscurities saw fit to give up Keith as a means to preserve themselves…I see no reason why they wouldn’t. At the same time, if they’re freedom fighters…it can be assumed that they would want to get Keith out of there.”

            “So like I said, we don’t know,” Pidge summarized.

            Hunk nodded mutely, finally forcing himself to eat another bite of food goo before Pidge rolled the second video, from the prison ship. His spork nearly fell out of his hand when his eyes landed on the screen. There was Keith, yes, hands bound and looking even worse for wear than he had in the clip from the lab. But then, on the screens before Keith, was Lance. Next to Lotor.

            Hunk was getting sick of seeing that guy’s face everywhere.

            “Lance uses Morse code again,” Pidge said. “I’ve already written it out. It’s nothing much—it just says _PLAN, SORRY_.”

            Pidge quieted after that, and she and Allura allowed Hunk to continue watching the video in tense silence. He stifled a gasp at the revelation that Lotor finally persuaded Lance to agree to some kind of union, and then stifled another, louder one when Lotor explained the terms of the agreement, while Pidge and Allura exchanged uncomfortable looks.

            _“As for you, Red Paladin, save your breath while you still can,”_ recording-Lance spat, and he stared at recording-Keith for a moment longer than necessary before Lotor ended things on his end. The video finished with Keith getting pushed around by officers on the prison ship, tripping over his feet and being caught by an officer who appeared none too pleased to be dealing with him.

            Hunk’s haggard reflection stared at back him as the laptop screen went dark. Pidge pulled it away from Hunk and turned it around, so the screen was facing herself and Allura once more. Hunk snapped out of his stupor with a blink, eyes cutting immediately to the two girls in front of him.

            “Lance looked too put-together there,” Hunk said. “But _you guys_ said he snapped.”

            “ _Mirak_ told us he snapped,” Allura said, straining to keep her voice measured. “This transmission occurred shortly before Mirak got to us, and shortly before Lance lost it, by her account. Even still…something seemed off about him, at least to me. He’s an excellent actor, as we’ve established, but that transmission seemed a little…too genuine. And if Lance supposedly came up with this plan…”

            Allura trailed off, eyes narrowing as she looked down at Pidge, who typed away at her computer, the light reflecting off of her glasses. Hunk picked his spork back up and pushed the food goo around on his plate again.

            “Yeah,” he conceded, “that plan…when he said Lance came up with it…why would he _do that?_ Why ask for Keith to be brought back to Central Command? I know they’re like, dating, but you’d think Lance would want to keep him as far away as possible.”

            “That’s what’s so off-putting,” Allura said. “I feel as though Lance’s judgment is becoming more clouded the longer he stays in captivity. From what Mirak has explained, Lotor has done nothing to directly influence Lance’s decisions—no visits to the druids, or some sort of mind-controlling device. However, Mirak has mentioned that Lance has been put in charge of some of Lotor’s strategy teams.”

            The spork scraped the plate with a shrill noise that had Pidge and Allura wincing.

            “He _what?_ ”

            Allura grimaced. “As you know, there have been scores of distress signals we’ve been unable to answer, or unwilling. A number of them—not huge, but alarming enough—were attacked under orders from Lance. His own plans were used to take over or destroy those planets. I fear being surrounded by Lotor’s officers, and at Lotor’s side every waking moment, has skewed his moral compass.”

            Pidge made a noise of distress, something between a groan and a whimper.

            Allura glanced down at her. “Pidge?”

            “I just…he’s doing what he can to _survive_. I don’t think he _asked_ to be put in charge of strategy, and if he blatantly sabotaged the missions, then Lotor would know something was up with him,” Pidge said.

            “I know,” Allura replied. “I didn’t mean to come off as though I’m _blaming_ him for things beyond his control—I’m merely pointing out an alarming trend in his mental state. Which is why, as soon as Shiro is out of the pod, we must retrieve Keith and get to Central Command. I fear the longer Lance stays, the less of him there will be for us to rescue.”

            Pidge raised her eyes from the screen, peering over the top of her laptop to meet Hunk’s gaze.

            “So…do we know where Keith is now?” Hunk asked, in an effort to switch to a more optimistic topic.

            Allura nodded with pursed lips.

            “Mirak explained to us that the prison ship was shot down almost immediately after the transmission concluded. As we stated before, it was shot down on a planet called Ruovi. They trust no one—not the Empire, nor the rebels in the system, nor the rebels outside…nor Voltron, it would seem. They keep to themselves. Getting on the planet to search for Keith will be difficult.”

            Allura finally let her features soften, bunched shoulders slumping with exhaustion. Just taking in all of this information made Hunk yearn for a long nap. Meanwhile, Allura and Pidge had been the first ones to hear this news, and were tasked with explaining it to him. And then to Shiro, later on. And there was no doubt in Hunk’s mind that while he’d been recovering in a pod, Allura and Pidge had already set to discussing some sort of fledgling plan with Mirak.

            “We’re Paladins,” Hunk said, finally, forcing a ghost of a smile to his face. “We can handle this. Once Shiro’s out of the pod, it’ll be smooth sailing.”

* * *

            As it turned out, it took another three days for Shiro to be fully healed.

            Hunk, Allura, Pidge, and Coran spent much of those three days preparing to enter the Bolza System. Distress signals going off all over the place went ignored, in favor of getting to Keith once and for all.

            With the real system name finally exposed, it didn’t take very long for Pidge to track it down. The next step was honing in on the two planets Keith was known to have been on. Ven was the first. From what Pidge could find, the entire planet was covered in either forest or mountain. Instead of destroying the landscape, the natives worked with it, and built houses among the trees, built airstrips in mountain peaks. A deeper dig unearthed the highlight of the planet: a market hidden between mountain passes, at the top of one of the smaller mountains. The market dealt mostly in people and chemicals from faraway galaxies, all for the perusal of the scientists inhabiting the system.

            “That’s where they probably brought Keith,” Hunk had remarked that day, peering over Pidge’s shoulder.

            Finding information about Ruovi beyond what Allura and Mirak could provide was more difficult. As with many other castle logs, the Bolza System’s information was flimsy, and information on Ruovi itself was practically nonexistent, beyond the occasional reports from ships that had been shot down or had close calls.

            On that particular afternoon, Pidge may or may not have nearly broken her laptop in frustration.

            “Once we give Shiro a varga or two to get back into things, we’ll wormhole to just outside of the system,” Allura was explaining now, as she, Hunk, and Pidge made their way down to the med bay, while Coran stayed on the bridge, monitoring their progress and communication feeds.

            Pidge and Hunk nodded as the doors to the med bay opened for them. Allura got to work reading off Shiro’s vitals, while Hunk prepped to catch him when he came out of the pod. Pidge paced, studying Shiro’s face in the pod before the glass shimmered away, and he fell forward into Hunk’s waiting arms.

            “Hey, buddy,” Hunk greeted, voice lacking its usual enthusiasm. He steadied Shiro as the Black Paladin got his feet beneath him, and didn’t let go of his arm until he was certain he wouldn’t fall over.

            “How long was I out?” Shiro asked, breathless-sounding, as though he’d just gotten through running a marathon.

            “About four days,” Pidge answered right away. “We have a lot to catch you up on, but basically, we know where Keith is. We think. It’s been a few days, but this should get us somewhere. A hell of a lot closer than we’ve been the past few weeks.”

            Shiro reacted immediately, urgency in his movements as he headed toward the door to the medbay.

            “I’m going to get dressed. Meet up on the bridge in five,” Shiro said, wobbling in his first few steps before his legs were solidly underneath him, his motions sure. He didn’t stop for any of them as they called after him. Not Hunk, advising him to take it easy. Not Pidge, explaining that he didn’t have to rush. Not Allura, shouting that he literally just got out of the pod, he needed to slow down.

            The remaining three Paladins in the med bay looked between each other before they took off—Pidge to go get her laptop, Allura for the bridge to prepare, and Hunk to go get food goo so that Shiro had something in his system after being in a pod for so long.

            Nervous tension filled the bridge no less than five minutes later, when the team regrouped.

            “Fill me in,” Shiro said, the commanding tone missing from his voice, and fill him in the team did. Pidge, Allura, and Hunk recounted everything that had happened in the four days between the battle and now, and the lead on Keith that they were prepping to follow.

            Shiro didn’t bat an eye at the idea of facing off with hostile aliens who likely wouldn’t turn over any useful information without a fight, or some “creative persuasion,” according to an interjection from Coran. Nor did he flinch at the idea of being shot at while attempting to land on Ruovi. He hardly reacted, until Pidge played the footage of Keith again for him.

            “What did they _do_ to him?” Shiro whispered, angered tension melting away into disbelief, bunched shoulders relaxing, as the first clip of Keith in the lab began.

            “We don’t have an exact answer for that,” Pidge said, speaking in the gaps between important pieces of audio. “Lotor wanted him for research. Obviously they were employing electroshock torture to keep him compliant—but other than that, we’re clueless. Even Mirak didn’t know for sure.”

            Allura’s hand came down on Shiro’s shoulder as the rest of the clip played. Shiro’s GalraTech hand flared to life the moment Lotor ordered the scientists in the room to kill Keith, and the lead scientist called for another to prep some serum. Shiro wasn’t even aware that his hand was glowing until Allura’s hand stiffened on his shoulder.

            “Sorry,” Shiro muttered, voice hollow. “The next clip—you said he was recaptured?”

            Pidge nodded, stealing back her laptop for a second to pull up the next clip. “The Obscurities broke him out, but we don’t know what happened between that and the next clip—whether they handed him over, or everyone was captured. Either way, he ended up on a prison ship. Uh, be warned…Lance is in this one, too.”

            The second clip began, Shiro’s breath catching in the back of his throat. It’d been bad enough seeing Keith chained down in some lab, but it was something else entirely to see him back in handcuffs, looking even worse for wear, surrounded by soldiers, staring down the emperor himself…and Lance. At the emperor’s side.

            “Lance uses Morse here. Again,” Pidge remarked quietly. “He says _PLAN, SORRY._ That’s it.”

            Lance had a plan.

            Shiro tried to remember this as he watched the clip, stomach churning with every passing second. He gasped at the same time that Keith started choking on his words.

            “Lance _what?_ ”

            “Likely part of his plan,” Pidge said, “although his plan…”

            “Why?” Shiro demanded as he swiveled away from the computer and toward the others. “Why would Lance ask that they send soldiers after Keith?”

            Hunk winced, casting a look at Pidge and Allura, silently asking one of them to deal with the Black Paladin.

            “Easy, Shiro,” Allura said, her voice softer but just as forceful. “We don’t know. But what we do know is that Lance appears to know exactly what he’s doing. In his situation, I imagine he’s making tough calls. You should know this better than any of us.”

            Shiro’s face slackened, and Hunk let out a low whistle before spinning on his heel and heading for the door. Pidge grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back, Hunk sighing quietly and waiting for Shiro to react further.

            “I can tell you now, this isn’t the only difficult decision he’s had to make,” Allura went on. “Lotor put him in charge of strategy—I highly doubt it is a position he asked for. Planets have fallen under his schemes, planets whose distress signals we’ve ignored.”

            “Planet _s_?” Shiro repeated in disbelief, head snapping toward Allura. “Planets _plural?_ ”

            Allura nodded, tight-lipped.

            “We don’t know if there would have been any way to save them if we’d gone in,” she added. “In any capacity, everything that’s happened is all said and done. We can only move forward from here. We’re following our lead on Keith…and hopefully, by the end of it, we’ll have one of our Paladins back.”

            _One of our Paladins._

            It sounded so detached. Maybe it had to be. Maybe saying _our brother_ or _our friend Keith_ was too much, would make emotions run too high, would jeopardize the entire thing.

            “Okay,” Shiro said, and didn’t correct Allura. “Let’s do this.”

* * *

            Entering the Bolza System should’ve been no different than entering any other star system. Nothing particularly fascinating stood out about the first few planets Team Voltron passed—as with other star systems, galaxies and nebulae glowed in the distance, while the more immediate planets still remained indistinct, their features nothing but swirls and blobs of color. This far out into the universe, color meant nothing, when trees could be blue and oceans could be pink and atmospheres could be hazy greens.  

            Yet, something nagged at the backs of the minds of the remaining Paladins aboard the Castle of Lions, an eeriness settling over the bridge as the ship moved into the territory, navigational systems locked onto Ruovi. Maybe it was the fact that they finally had a solid lead on one of their two missing Paladins, after almost a month of being lost as to his location. Maybe it was the absence of the two Paladins itself, two insistent presences missing, the overwhelming silence bleeding into the gaps left behind.

            “We should be to Ruovi within the next ten doboshes,” Coran announced, voice echoing around the bridge. “Be prepared for anything.”

            Nobody responded.

            Shiro stared out one of the windows, arms crossed tightly over his chest as he took in the scenes before them, gears in his brain working overtime to consider every potential twist and turn on their mission. This one couldn’t fail—Keith was relying on the team, and so was Lance. Everything rested on this rescue going smoothly. If they screwed up again, if _Shiro_ screwed up again—

            “We’re going to find him.” 

            Allura stood beside him, the thin light from the window catching in her white hair, reflecting in her narrowed eyes. She mimicked his pose, arms crossed and back rod-straight, but the softness in her voice betrayed it all. For a moment, she glanced at him, gazes meeting, before she flicked her eyes back to the space beyond.

            “I’m just as worried as you are,” she added. “But I have no doubt he’s holding his own. You must know that as much as I do."

            _I know_ , the words caught in Shiro's throat. This was Keith, after all: the boy with a tenacity Shiro found in few other people. But there were also few other people that Shiro found with a past like Keith's, with a backstory like Keith's. Galran blood or not, he was still _human_ , and humans could only be pushed so far.

_I did this to him._

            The guilt still hadn't settled. He'd made the split-second decision and sent Keith with Lance to Tarvin Three, instead of to Tarvin One with Pidge as originally planned. But then what would have happened? What would Lotor have done with Hunk? Would Hunk still have been sent out to the Bolza System, or would he have been viewed as expendable and been executed on the spot? Or would he not have been captured at all?

            Shiro wouldn't wish Keith's situation on anyone. Especially not another Paladin, another teammate, another family member. He wished he could have spared all of them from Keith's fate—but if someone had to face it, maybe he should've been grateful that he'd made the decision he had.

            _Should I be?_

            "Paladins," Coran called, and Shiro and Allura both turned around, Allura inching close enough to Shiro that her shoulder pressed against his bicep. “I’m getting indications of ships in the atmosphere.”

            Out the windows, Ruovi drew closer. The planet’s atmosphere swirled with clouds not unlike those in Earth’s atmosphere, but the ground appeared closer to pink than green. In other places, the ground appeared a more muted shade of brown than on Earth. As Shiro took an unconscious step forward, to get a closer look at mountain peaks popping up between clouds, the ship jolted violently. Shiro stumbled, snapping back to reality. Behind him, Pidge and Hunk threw themselves into their chairs, pulling up holoscreens and getting on defense drones before anyone could call orders.

            Shiro looked once more at Allura, who pursed her lips and gave him a tight nod, and he sat down in his own seat, screens glowing to life in front of him. 

            _No more distraction._

            “Attention Ruovins,” Allura called throughout the bridge, as Coran established a communications feed. “This is Princess Allura of Altea, a Paladin of Voltron. We come in peace, seeking aid.” 

            The next blow answered Allura’s announcement, ship rocking hard enough to throw Allura and Coran off their feet.               Allura scowled, and tried again to make her voice pleasant:

            “Attention Ruovins, this is Princess Allura—”

            A fireball exploded on the side of the ship, heat filling the bridge for a brief moment that made Hunk yelp and Pidge swear. Shiro grit his teeth, watching on his holoscreens as his defense drone blew up when a Ruovin ship collided with it.

            “Particle barrier up!” Allura called, and seafoam panels shimmered into place around the castleship, absorbing a smattering of smaller hits. A few ships, sizes akin to the fighter ships of the Galra, flew too fast to pull back and exploded upon contact, the barrier shuddering.

            “There are fighters pulling back on our three,” Hunk announced. 

            Sure enough, when Coran pulled up the ship scanners on the main viewing screen, small red dots drew back toward Ruovin. Moments later, the projection blinked out and was replaced by a request for an incoming transmission. 

            “Accept the request,” Allura ordered, stepping down from her post and making her way to the front of the bridge.

            Coran obliged.

            Shiro rose to his feet, making to join Allura, and shot glances at Pidge and Hunk over his shoulder, motioning for them to follow him. 

            A face appeared on the screens of the bridge, some sort of insect-humanoid hybrid. Shiro’s gaze hardened at the sight of the alien, probably a Ruovin. The Ruovin glared at everyone gathered in front of the transmission screen. 

            _“What business have you being in our airspace?”_ the Ruovin demanded, prompting Shiro to take a step in front of all the others. Allura joined him at his side, going so far as to raise her arm slightly, angling herself in front of Pidge. 

            “We come in peace,” Allura said, before Shiro could even open his mouth. 

            _“Clearly you haven’t, invading airspace without express permission, fighting back with your weapons,”_ the Ruovin retorted.

            Shiro’s fists clenched at his sides, and immediately, Allura reached down to take his GalraTech hand without so much as flinching. 

            “We’re here to retrieve the Red Paladin,” Allura said, and watched the Ruovin’s eyes glimmer. “He was aboard a Galra ship, which was shot down on your planet. He was a prisoner, wrongfully so. We’ve come to take him h—back with us.”

            _“The Red Paladin,”_ the Ruovin mused, while a choir started a chorus of _patience yields focus_ in Shiro’s head. _“I remember seeing him.”_

            _Seeing how beaten he was,_ Shiro thought immediately.

            “Do you know where he is?” Allura pressed.

            The Ruovin hesitated a second too long for Shiro’s liking before answering: _“Yes, I do.”_

            Shiro narrowed his eyes but said nothing.

            “If you’d be so kind,” Allura said, “we request permission to land and retrieve our Paladin. We mean your people no harm, and as soon as our teammate is returned to us, we’ll be making our exit.”

            The Ruovin considered Allura’s request for a few moments, expression nearly theatrical.

            _“Very well then,”_ the Ruovin said. _“I am uploading landing coordinates over our communications link. You are to deboard and present yourselves, weaponless, when you land.”_

            Allura bowed before the screen, and the Ruovin cut the link, the bridge windows lightening in the wake of the transmission.

            “So this smells like another trap,” Pidge said, before silence could fill the space.

            “Oh, it’s definitely a trap,” Shiro replied. “We’re going to walk right into it. Be prepared for a fight.”

* * *

            It took longer than Shiro thought, but it happened nonetheless.

            The team landed and deboarded, pretending not to have weapons on them, while the Ruovin tech used to scan them didn’t turn up their bayards, in storage in their suits, or Allura’s staff, presented as a scepter used to mark royal status on Altea. The Ruovin who greeted them was the same one from the transmission, who identified himself as Asnolus, led them down the airstrip they landed on, an airstrip pocked with scorch marks.

            “What happened here?” Hunk asked, to break up the tense silence that had fallen over the group, when Asnolus didn’t offer up any explanation.

            Asnolus looked over the airstrip with disdain. “Not sure.”

            “Looks like it happened recently,” Pidge said, arching her eyebrows at Asnolus, who responded to her look with cool impassivity.

            “If it did, I was not present,” he said, and turned away from the Green and Yellow Paladins, opting to open up the door to the building they’d been approaching. He ushered the team inside. Allura took the lead, and Shiro brought up the rear, making sure to keep Pidge in front of him.

            “I don’t like this,” Pidge hissed, low enough that only Shiro could hear.

            The door to the hallway they’d entered shut with a heavy clang, a series of clicks sounding afterward. Shiro’s hand twitched, itching to pull his bayard, while he refrained from activating his GalraTech hand.

            “Continue down this hallway,” Asnolus directed from the back of the group, voice echoing on the metal walls.

            The hallway ended at another door, and Asnolus spoke into some device—a walkie-talkie, or communicator link, Shiro wasn’t sure—and the door opened up for them. Asnolus ordered them to keep going, and at the front of the group, Allura inhaled sharply as she stepped forward. The hair on the back of Shiro’s neck stood up as Hunk joined Allura, then Pidge, and then himself, Asnolus last.

            This door shut, too, just as Shiro registered what, exactly, this building was for.

            Momentarily, everything flashed purple, and bars were replaced with plexiglass windows, padlocks becoming keypads. The prisoners inside of these cells didn’t wear the tattered clothing they’d come on this planet with—instead, they wore black bodysuits and purple tunics, but the pain in their eyes—

            “Come on, man, you can do this.”

            Hunk appeared at Shiro’s side out of nowhere, pulling him away from his thoughts long enough to refocus on the mission at hand.

            “Dear me,” Asnolus said, as Team Voltron pulled tighter together. “It appears the Red Paladin _isn_ _’t_ here after all.”

            “Wardens,” Pidge warned in a low voice, and Shiro heard the footsteps coming up behind the group.

            “Where is he?” Shiro demanded. “What happened here?”

            Asnolus looked around the room, gesturing to busted padlocks, to cowering prisoners sporting bruises and cuts, blaster wounds and the like.

            “Let’s just say…there was an altercation. Maybe you could even replicate it—”

            Team Voltron moved before he could finish.

            There were only the four of them, Coran waiting back on the castleship, and Asnolus had only thought to send in three wardens.

            Allura swung out with her staff, while Hunk used his ion cannon like a battering ram, the range too close for him to use it for his true purpose. Pidge delivered an uppercut to another warden with her bayard, the warden shrieking as she electrocuted them. Shiro, meanwhile, lunged for Asnolus.

            The Ruovin, too smug with how his little plot was going down, didn’t move out of the way in time.

            Shiro slammed him back into the wall, so hard that metal bent and warped around Asnolus’ shape. With one arm, Shiro pressed down against Asnolus’ neck. He raised his other arm, GalraTech hand glowing purple. He brought it close to Asnolus’ face, close enough for the alien to feel the heat radiating off of it.

            “What the _hell_ did you do to the Red Paladin?” Shiro snarled, ignoring the gasps that went up behind him. “Lie to me again and _I will use this._ ”

            Asnolus, despite the situation, still had the audacity to smile up at Shiro.

            “There was a prison break,” Asnolus answered. “Your _Keith_ was one of the ringleaders, although maybe he shouldn’t be given that title, it was very impromptu, it happened after he broke a win—”

            Shiro pressed down harder on Asnolus’ neck, hard enough for him to start choking.

            “Where the _fuck is he?_ ”

            He let up only enough for Asnolus to answer: “I don’t know— _ack, I re—I really don_ _’t know!—_ this was _quintants—ag—_ ”

            _Quintants ago._

            Overhead, an alarm started blaring. Asnolus glared at Shiro, any cheekiness gone.

            “Not the ans—”

            Shiro pressed down on his neck again, and in his mind’s eye he could see himself snapping it, could see himself pressing the palm of his hand against Asnolus’ face while he screamed and flesh charred—

            “Shiro!”

            Someone grabbed his shoulder and jerked him back, and Asnolus crumpled to the ground, hands going to his wounded neck. Shiro spun around, hand still raised, and came face-to-face with Hunk. Hunk stared wide-eyed at the hand, and then switched his gaze to meet Shiro’s. Shiro’s face fell, and he dropped his hand to his side.

            “I-I—”

            “We know,” Hunk said, voice lower.

            “We have to go,” Allura called, she and Pidge already breaking through the doors, and any chance Shiro had to reflect on what he’d just done was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so if you follow my chatfic/have been paying attention to the author notes, you'll know that i'm in the drama club at school, and during the school day tomorrow we're just running show previews so at least tomorrow won't take much brain power, it's not like i have to go to calc (FUCK CALC)
> 
> also number two, i made a [pinterest board for the series](https://www.pinterest.com/eileensholo/deceit-so-natural/), in case you want hints about where this is going ;) (also feel free to look at my other boards/follow me)
> 
> number three: since i have up through chapter 21 plotted, i can give a lil summary of what i've got planned for next chapter:  
> lance is back, and things are getting worse, ft. a training deck, an open door, and the emperor's persistent romance. 
> 
> see ya then ;)


	20. The One in Which Lance Gets Hurt (In More Ways Than One)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance and Lotor get ambushed by a group of Lotor's officers in the middle of the night, and it's all downhill from there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the three week delay! I had this plotted but I hit writer's block about 1000 words in...we're all good now, though!
> 
>  **Notes:**  
>  -I changed my username to nerdyspaceace to match all my other social media :P  
> -I've been referring to Red as a girl this whole time, and I'm only just remembering now that Red...is a boy. From here on out, Red's getting he/him pronouns. It's gonna take time for me to go back through all three fanfics and change them in all previous chapters.  
> -This trilogy turned 6 months old on Christmas and I didn't even realize, wowie.  
> -Y'all aren't ready for this chapter.
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings**  
>  1\. Graphic violence (that warning's technically on the fanfic already but whatever)  
> 2\. Lancelot content  
> 3\. An instance of vomit  
> 4\. Emotional manipulation/abuse (should be used to that in this fanfic by now but whatever)
> 
> Read on ;)

Chapter 20

            It was a coping mechanism, nothing more and nothing less.

            Lance still struggled to come to grips with it in the wake of his latest breakdown, several days ago now. Still struggled to come to grips with it, lying in the dark of his room with Lotor’s steady arms around him. This wasn’t the first night, nor the second. After his breakdown, Lotor _insisted_ upon the arrangement, and arrived to Lance’s room every night after they were both washed up and in pajamas. Lance hated to admit that sleeping next to _anyone,_ especially someone behaving gently with him, helped immensely. His nightmares were subsiding, replaced with blissfully dreamless unconsciousness.

            Usually.

            Just like insomnia aboard the Castle of Lions _usually_ wasn’t a problem for Lance, as there were a number of outlets for him to take advantage of—usually sneaking around to play a video game, or raid the kitchen for something to eat before he tried again to sleep. Occasionally, he’d hit the training deck. On nights when anxieties kicked in and turned it up to eleven, he’d find himself on an observation deck, alone, watching the universe pass him by.

            Tonight, he stared at the open door of his room, the ball of nerves in the pit of his stomach uncoiling and stretching out, filling every fiber of his being.

            Such an obvious detail, and he hadn’t noticed it until now, until he couldn’t sleep and couldn’t count stars and couldn’t burn excess energy. Or maybe he hadn’t noticed it not because he’d been too exhausted, but because the door let in no light. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, Lance could make out the metal frame, and the abyss it surrounded. The hall lights were doused; Lotor had seemingly ordered this area of Central Command abandoned.

            That way, he’d be the only person allowed near Lance.

            _It worked,_ Lance thought now, suddenly hyperaware of the lack of space between himself and the emperor, every point of contact between them buzzing. Lance rolled over—he’d been on his back before, and now lay on his side, facing away from Lotor. He held his breath and waited, and just as he suspected, as soon as he moved, Lotor’s arms tried to tighten about him, the emperor shifting in his sleep. Or maybe he wasn’t asleep. Lance wasn’t willing to risk the glance back to find out. He knew that the moment he tried to worm his way out of Lotor’s arms entirely, Lotor _would_ be awake, questioning why he was getting up.

            He’d know Lance was lying if he told Lotor he was going to the bathroom, and then bolted for the hall.

            Lance resigned himself to relaxing back into Lotor’s grip, into the cushy mattress and soft pillows and silk sheets. Not for the first time since being kidnapped, the thought struck Lance of how fortunate he was that _this_ was his situation, playing up a romance with the emperor, being taken care of, having food and a luxurious place to sleep and someone watching his back…even if the person watching his back was the one who brought him here in the first place. He was faring far better than Keith, whose current status was lost to him.

            Keith was alive—Lance knew that and nothing else. He was shot down on some planet, and the Galra were still searching, under orders from Lotor to keep the missions covert. Lance knew better; having a mental link to a semi-sentient robot lion that was also linked to Keith would do that.

            The Red Paladin was one of the root causes of Lance’s insomnia. That much became clear every time he shut his eyes and saw Keith’s bruised, seared skin, white scars trailing up and down his arms; saw the deep circles under his eyes, the gauntness to his face, the way skin clung to bone. Keith had been pale—sick, no doubt about it. His brain replayed the first moments of that transmission over and over—Keith, on weak legs, hair longer than Lance remembered and falling into a face riddled with shock upon seeing Lance at Lotor’s side, and the way he’d uttered Lance’s _name_ …

            _Stop it._

            Late nights were never a good time for thinking, Lance mused as he blinked away the tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. They’d never been before, when he’d slept alone, without anyone for comfort, and they weren’t now, when he had a charade to keep up.

            _Go to sleep._

* * *

            He couldn’t go back to sleep, and the next few nights were no better. He gave no indication he’d realized that the door was wide open every night, crashing into bed after long meetings with Lotor’s coarse officers, after spending the remainder of each day parading about the ship at Lotor’s side. Today, objectively, had been the worst—three meetings in rapid succession, followed by a diplomatic lunch, followed by a transmission with a planet the Galra were bent on destroying if it wouldn’t cave to their demands of an alliance.

            _That_ _’s not how you make allies,_ Lance thought to himself, but kept his mouth shut as he watched one diplomat in the transmission scrutinize him. The _knowledge_ in the look the diplomat had given him…either they recognized him as one of the Paladins, or they knew this entire thing was a charade. Had read discomfort in a posture he’d tried so hard to make comfortable.

            These thoughts kept him awake now as he lay on his side, barely able to see the dark pit of the open door. Somehow, these near-sleepless nights were still better than the ones where he slept alone—these few hours were better than the one or two he normally got when he was on his own. Here, he lay comfortable with the knowledge that he had someone here to watch his back. Even if he’d already considered trying to strangle this someone to death in their sleep. Maybe he would’ve, if he knew he could get away with it.

            The first night he contemplated it, his hands had clenched and unclenched on the mattress inches in front of his face, and each time, Lance imagined Lotor’s throat between his fingers. He imagined the emperor gasping for air, until he finally stopped struggling, until the light left his eyes—

            _Thunk._

            Lance’s eyes snapped to the door, the sudden shift in gaze making it difficult to see. Lance waited for his eyes to readjust to the dark. He hadn’t imagined the sound—something near the door had definitely moved, and it hadn’t been in some distant part of the ship. It had either been in the room, or just outside.

            Lance became suddenly aware of how vulnerable he was. He had no weapons and no armor on. Lotor was asleep, and effectively trapping Lance in his arms.

            _You have to wake him up._

            The idea became much clearer when Lance caught sight of the form slinking into the room from the door—an officer, probably, crouched close to the ground, unaware that Lance was watching them before they had the chance to disappear from his line of sight.

            “Lotor,” Lance hissed, rolling over to face the emperor, flushing when their noses nearly brushed.

            The emperor didn’t wake right away, and somewhere in the room, a gun whined to life.

            _Oh quiznak._

            “Lotor,” Lance repeated, and reached out to shake him by the shoulder. “Wake up.”

            Lotor’s light snoring ceased abruptly, and on what appeared to be instinct, his hand flew to his side—in seconds, there was a blade against Lance’s neck. Lance held his breath, warily eying the weapon, gleaming in the dark.

            “Lotor, it’s me,” Lance whispered. “It’s Jeremy.”

            Lotor’s eyes focused, then, at the sound of Lance’s voice, and he drew his dagger back, surprise in his features.

            “My love, I—”

            “There’s someone in the room. With a gun. Ready to fire,” Lance interrupted, voice so low he could hardly hear himself.

            Lotor’s expression changed, from soft and sleepy to battle-weary and steely. He sat up slowly, hissing an order to Lance to stay down. So stay down Lance did, nearly jumping out of his skin when he noticed a _second_ officer near his side of the bed, crawling ever-closer. They had a gun of their own, powered down. Lance scooted closer to Lotor, until there was no space left between them.

            “There’s another,” Lance whispered.

            Had the first one just been a distraction for the second to slip in, unnoticed? Were there more Lance had overlooked while waking Lotor up? How many people were in here, besides himself and the emperor?

            “What do we do?” Lance asked.

            _I can_ _’t die here. This is not where it ends._

            Lance did not finesse his way to fighter pilot, blast himself and his friends into space, become a Paladin of Voltron, finally find love in a boy with a mullet, and fool an emperor once, only for it all to end in bed with said emperor, at the hand of some officer he couldn’t even _see._

            Lotor didn’t answer right away. Lance knew there weren’t many options before them—Lotor had shed his armor before climbing into bed with Lance, settling for the simple silks of his pajamas, and the only weapon they had between the two of them was the dagger. There was no way in hell that Lotor would ever leave himself defenseless and give his weapon over to Lance.

            “You must run,” Lotor finally whispered, and Lance almost started choking.

            Run?

            He was being told to _run?_

            Lance didn’t raise his voice in question.

            “Okay,” he whispered, and in his mind, he reached out. _Red—Blue—I need you_ now _—_

            Lotor raised his arm in front of Lance, pressing lightly against his chest. Lance was surprised to find Lotor wasn’t looking at him; the emperor’s eyes swept the room, counting off the number of officers creeping about.

            “There are five,” Lotor hissed, and Lance’s stomach twisted.

            Five potential…assassins? Kidnappers?

            _They_ _’ve got guns._

            Assassins, definitely.

            By now, they had to have been aware that Lance and Lotor knew of their presence, and their intentions. Lance wondered how many guns were trained on him at that very second, and if he’d even get the chance to run before they fired.

            “When I drop my arm,” Lotor whispered, grabbing Lance’s attention again, “you run. Find somewhere to hide, and don’t come out until I get you.”

            _Yeah, sure,_ Lance thought, but just gave Lotor a tight nod. The more he complied, the less Lotor questioned. He just needed to get out of this room in one piece. After that, if all went according to the vague plan still assembling in his head, he’d be off of this base before anyone could catch him.

            Lance waited, muscles tight like coils ready to spring, and the second Lotor dropped his arm and urged him to _move,_ he bolted.

            The room lit up purple with blaster fire as officers began firing away, Lance painfully aware that a single hit could end him, depending on where it landed. A few came too close for comfort, one sailing only a couple inches above his head and striking the wall above the door. But it cleared Lance, and that was all he needed. He pounded on bare feet into the hallway, grabbing the door frame and using the momentum to swing himself down the hall.

            There were more officers waiting.

            The first few fired at him, but when it became clear that their shots were missing, they took the more direct approach—someone swept Lance’s legs out from underneath him, while another one went for a tackle. Lance screamed as he went down— _I can_ _’t die here I can’t die here I can’t die here_ —and used his lank to his advantage. He squirmed and kicked, and landed a hit to the jaw of whoever was trying to pin him down. There was a grunt, and something clattered to the ground.

            Lance reached for the gun and swiped it before the other officers could get to it, adrenaline tearing through his veins like rushing river rapids. He raised it to deflect a fist coming for his face, and then he aimed and fired, blasting one officer in the face at point-blank range. The office fell back, unable to scream a warning to the other officers down this hallway—Lance supposed screaming was kind of hard with your entire face blown off. He staggered to his feet, firing shot after shot, while the officers in the hall shrieked for someone to knock him down and get the gun away from him.

            _Blue, Red, where are you?_

            Lance hoped that one of the Lions would reach out to him and direct him toward their hangar, but neither of them responded. Lance might’ve panicked about that, if he didn’t have more immediate problems. Running while firing wasn’t feasible—he’d be open to attack again. But standing in one spot made him an open target—it would be a matter of time before someone broke through his weak defenses and got to him again.

            _Go._

            He’d have to take his chances running.

            Lance dropped his gun to his side and set off again, ducking underneath blaster fire. He broke down another hallway as he stumbled upon the entry to his left, one shot grazing his back—not enough to do real damage, but just enough to singe the back of his pajama shirt.

            “Blue, Red,” he whispered again, like maybe saying things out loud would help the situation, “where _are you two?_ Can you help me?”

            Still no response from either of them. Lance supposed it didn’t matter, especially not when someone grabbed him by the neck and slammed him back on the ground.

            Lance held fast to the gun in his hands as another officer swung the barrel of their own gun toward him. In the end, it came down to who had the quicker shot, and Lance wasn’t the team sharpshooter for nothing—he fired then rolled left as a blast came down right where his head had been not even a second before.

            _Not fast enough,_ Lance thought viciously as he looked at the smoking body.

            Then he was back on his feet and running.

            _Red. Blue. Seriously._

            He could feel them, faintly, in the back of his mind, but neither of them seemed inclined to help him. He scowled and swung around another corner, raised his blaster, and fired at the three robotic sentries who waited for him. They fell in quick succession, clanging loudly as they went down.

            If only he’d been this quick with the soldiers who brought him to this hellscape almost a month ago.

            Maybe acting alone, he could’ve been.

            Lance tore down the hallway with the fallen sentries, gun in a white-knuckled clutch.

            _Blue, Red, can one of you ANSWER ME?_

            Lance stumbled upon an opening to another hallway. He paused, to peer down it, and stumbled back as an officer landed a hit to his stomach with blaster fire. He fired back, shot veering off-course as he went down and blowing off the officer’s arm instead of his head.

            “Fuck,” Lance muttered, one hand covering his wound, while the other leveled the blaster and fired down the hallway again. And again. And again. Over and over until the four officers were all dead on the ground, and there was no one left to attack him.

            Once they were down, Lance leaned back, stomach aflame with pain. He lowered his gun slowly into his lap, and then dropped his eyes to the wound, wincing.

            The blast was a laser blast, and as such, it had cauterized immediately. It didn’t mean the injury was any less intense, but Lance supposed he should’ve been thankful he’d been moving a little bit, and not completely still, when he took the hit—it could’ve been deeper. Still, the area he’d been hit…if he didn’t get help soon…

            _Red, Blue, please_ _…_

            How were they supposed to help him now? He was in a hallway strewn with bodies, injured and alone. The team would have no way of getting here in a timely manner, much less busting in here and finding him. So then what was _he_ supposed to do? Scream for help and let another officer find him and finish him off? Let his injury become infected and die here?

            “Jeremy!” the shocked cry came from Lance’s left. He raised his head in time to see Lotor crash to his knees next to him.

            “Lotor,” Lance murmured, hissing in pain as he tried to sit up straighter.

            Lotor would take him to get healed.

            “My love,” Lotor said, “you’re hurt.”

            “Hadn’t noticed,” Lance grunted.

            “Who did this to you?” Lotor’s hands hovered over Lance’s, and then he gently pried them away to probe the wound. Lance hissed louder, and recoiled the moment one of Lotor’s fingers touched him. Lotor drew back, eyebrows knit in concern.

            “Already dead,” Lance said with a shake of his head.

            Lotor turned his head, stiffening as he saw the bodies down the hallway they sat across from. Then his eyes drifted to the gun in Lance’s lap. Something crossed his features, an expression that faded too quickly for Lance to accurately pinpoint.

            “We must get you healed,” Lotor said, frowning. “I’ve cleared the remaining officers. Those who haven’t been slaughtered know the consequences they face if they try to bring harm to you again.”

            Lotor scooped Lance into his arms before Lance could protest, gun clattering to the ground. Every movement sent a fresh wave of pain rolling over him, as Lotor hurried through the hall, until Lance’s vision began swimming. It wasn’t long before there was more darkness than not.

            “Hang on, my love,” Lotor whispered. “Hang on.”

            Lance nodded, mind far away.

* * *

             “He appears to have retained all of his memories this entire time, Your Imperial Majesty.”

            Lotor stopped his pacing altogether as he waited just outside the door to the med bay. The druids had been insistent that he didn’t come in while they healed Jeremy, something about it being crucial to the process, which Lotor supposed was all just code for _we can_ _’t have you screwing things up_ as usual, _Your Imperial Majesty,_ in which case, _that_ was code for _we still like Haggar better than you, even though she_ _’s dead._ But no matter. Not important—not anymore.

            “He _what?_ ” Lotor snarled.

            The druid didn’t appear the least bit fazed. Not in their bodily motions, at least. Of course, that unnerving mask was hiding their face, so maybe they were cowering or sweating, but if they were, they were hiding it well, and under other circumstances maybe Lotor would’ve commended them. But not now. Not important, it _wasn_ _’t as fucking important as this._

            “A search through his mind while he was unconscious revealed that he’s been faking his gap in memory from the very beginning,” the druid explained. “Just as before, he’s been playing at the Jeremy persona. He meant to make his escape, but it appears the Red and Blue Lions would not answer his pleas for help.”

            So then…

            Every kiss. Every whispered word. Every touch.

            They had all been _lies._

            But _then._

            Each night in bed, Lotor had let his guard down and been blissfully unconscious. Even mere vargas ago, that gun had been within easy reach—Lotor hadn’t even thought to get it away from Team Voltron’s sharpshooter, because amnesiac or not, the evidence was there: he still had his shooter instinct.

            He hadn’t tried to kill him.

            Interesting.

            “Was there anything else you were able to uncover?” Lotor asked, schooling his voice into cold calm.

            The druid hesitated, and then said, “It would appear he was having panic attacks. They’ve lessened considerably, especially over the last two movements, but they were frequent when he first arrived. It appears he still cares very deeply for the Red Paladin, despite the charade he’s been keeping up.”

            Lotor smiled.

            There it was.

            In all honesty, this explained the Blue Paladin’s uneasiness around the topic much more than his citations of his fabricated memories bothering him. Memories he supposedly couldn’t even _recall_.

            “What should we do?” the druid asked.

            The easy thing to do would’ve been to tell the druid to go ahead and ruin the Blue Paladin. Steal his mind, hand it over to the Galra cause once and for all. _So_ easy. And then what would that do? The Blue One would merely try and rebel every chance he got. He’d fight back with every last bit of rage he had left. Once Team Voltron got wind of what had really happened to their Paladin, they’d come running for him, as if they weren’t planning to already. They’d see him being hurt, and they wouldn’t be able to let that stand. As far as they knew, at this moment, their Blue One was being _taken care of._

            “Nothing,” Lotor answered. “Is he awake?”

            “Came to just a few doboshes ago,” the druid answered.

            “And does he know his mind’s been searched through? Does he know what you’ve discovered?”

            “…Not as far as we’re aware, Your Imperial Majesty.”

            Lotor loosed a breath. “Good. Make sure he never finds out. Nobody is to act like anything was discovered. As far as he is to know and we are to act, he was healed from his wound and _nothing more._ Are we understood?”

            “Yes, Your Imperial Majesty.”

            “Excellent.”

* * *

            After his near-death at the hands of Lotor’s officers, Lance moved into Lotor’s chambers at night.

            At least here, Lotor could open the door from the inside, which meant it could be shut at night, which meant no one else was sneaking up on them. In here, Lance hated to admit, he felt a little more secure. There was also something comforting about knowing that the person who posed the biggest threat to him was bent on keeping him safe, so much that he’d go as far as slaughtering his own officers to keep them from touching him.

            At least _he_ acknowledged Lance.

            In the few days following the incident that nearly killed him, Lance hadn’t heard a peep out of Blue or Red. Their energies were faint, and Lance wondered if being separated from the rest of the Lions, or from the Castle of Lions itself, was starting to have an adverse effect on them. Even when he’d been stranded on the mermaid planet with Hunk, it had only been a few days—Blue and Yellow had responded to them, then.

            Now they’d gone silent.

            “My love,” Lotor murmured in Lance’s ear, pulling him out of his thoughts, where he _should_ _’ve_ been asleep. “We’ve much to do today. You must wake.”

            Right.

            Lotor had seen the damage he could do with a gun. Even if he hadn’t seen Lance in action, he’d seen the aftermath, the destroyed sentries and murdered officers.

            _You killed them._

            Lance’s fingers tightened in the blanket he had pulled close to his chin. Countless officers, dead at his hand. He hadn’t been thinking anything but _fire and run, kill or get killed._ Could anyone blame him for having a sense of self-preservation on a fucking _Galra ship?_ It was them or him, and as far as Lance was concerned, he was a Paladin who was needed in the universe.

            _Stop. You did what you needed to do._

            Either way, they were dead.

            Lance had nearly been dead.

            After that, Lotor promised to put Lance on the training deck, and give him time to hone his skills, so that he’d never be caught in that situation again. Or at least, not a similar one.

            Today was the day.

            “Good morning,” Lance whispered, rolling over to face Lotor.

            _I wish they_ _’d killed you._

            But then who would’ve saved _him?_ Who would’ve made sure he remained unhurt in his time in Central Command?

            Lotor alive, right now, was a better alternative to Lotor dead.

            Lotor smiled at Lance, and reached a gentle hand to his face, to brush his cheek.

            _This should be Keith._

            It was a thought that hadn’t bothered him in a little while now. He’d gotten better, since his last bad breakdown, at keeping the thoughts of Keith being in Lotor’s place at bay, but it was moments like these that ruined it, because no one but Keith had touched him like this before, so gently, so slowly.

            _You barely had any time with him._

 _You_ _’ve had more time with Lotor as Jeremy._

            The thought nearly made Lance freeze.

            _What can you know of feelings for someone you barely spent a week with? You were_ desperate. _You_ _’ve had time to let_ this _develop. This is more real than anything else you_ _’ve ever experienced—_

 _Shut up, you know that_ _’s not true—_

 _And isn_ _’t it? Almost a month here and you’ve done nothing but make heart eyes at the emperor and act as his lover. For someone who claims to hate him so much, you sure do a_ great _job at showing it!_

            Wrong, wrong, so wrong, he spent a damn _year_ in space with Keith, fighting countless battles side-by-side, spending months getting to know each other, letting their relationship actually _blossom—_

“Jeremy,” Lotor said, “come along. Get ready for the quintant.”

            Either Lotor hadn’t noticed him spacing out, or was gracious enough to not say anything. He kissed Lance quickly, just a peck, in and out before Lance could even get the chance to reciprocate. Then he left the bed, starting toward the one bathroom in the bedroom. The first night in here, Lance had been presented with two options: bathe with Lotor, or take turns.

            He could play up the romance all he wanted, but he was not stepping into the same shower with the emperor. He drew the line at nudity.

            Because of that, it took longer for Lance and Lotor to reach the training deck. By the time they did, they’d both missed breakfast— _missed the chance to make another spectacle of this relationship,_ Lance mused both bitterly and amusedly—and shooting on an empty stomach wasn’t going to help Lance very much. Still, he kept that thought to himself as he got situated on the deck, and Lotor took up his position behind the glass wall of the observation deck.

            Lotor was the only one here to watch Lance.

            “I’ll begin the simulations whenever you’re ready,” Lotor called to Lance.

            At the moment, he had his back to Lance, typing away at some computer screen on the far wall of the observation deck. Lance nodded and turned toward the weapons that filled the left wall of the training deck. They stretched from floor to ceiling—Lance wondered how someone was supposed to _reach_ the ones near the top of the wall—but then he paused.

            Near the top of the wall hung the red and blue bayards, in glass cases.

            _To be shown off,_ Lance realized. This was where his true weapon had been the entire time—hanging in the training deck as a damn _prize_. A spoil of war.

            Just like himself.

            _You can_ _’t do anything about that right now,_ Lance reminded himself, and refocused on choosing a weapon. The obvious course of action would’ve been to take a gun and obliterate anything Lotor sent his way. The _smart_ course of action was to spend this time wisely and learn a new weapon.

            So Lance picked up a sword.

            It wasn’t huge, nothing like the swords Keith favored, but it wasn’t small, either. Bigger than a dagger, bigger than a gladius or Viking sword. Slightly smaller than a longsword or a scimitar. The blade wasn’t very thick, either, but the weight felt right in Lance’s palm, the hilt snug the way his guns usually felt, so this was the one he was running with.

            “A sword?” Lotor mused from above. “After the display in the halls a few quintants ago, I thought for sure you’d be using a gun.”

            _Don_ _’t sound so smug._

            “I don’t need to train with a gun,” Lance called back, warding away defeat from his voice. It was bad enough to be training with no one but Lotor watching him and learning his moves along with him, let alone outright admitting that he was pretty damn lousy in combat with anything other than a gun.

            “Alright,” Lotor said, “then I’ll rework the sim for a moment. I had the setting much higher…”

            Lotor drifted back to the computer, making short work of rigging up the sims to the proper level.

            Then he activated them.

            Lance watched as a container of glass popped out of the wall to encase the weapons. Then, all at once, every wall, the floor, and the ceiling shimmered out of existence, until Lance was standing in a blank world of white.

            “L-Lotor? What’s going on?”

            “The sim is setting up, my love. Give it a moment or two,” Lotor answered.

            Lance couldn’t see Lotor, behind the whitened walls, but he had no doubt Lotor could see _him._

            “Oh, o-okay,” Lance said, and held his sword out in front of him in a way similar to how he remembered Keith always holding his.

            _Stop thinking about him._

            Lance sharpened his focus as soon as the room shimmered again. This time, the walls turned a dark color, and Lance could vaguely make out the outlines of trees, and twinkling stars in the sky above. The ground beneath his feet changed, to look like dirt, and even the texture changed along with it. Lance replanted his feet, cautiously looking around for attackers.

            The first bot to blink into existence looked exactly like one of the Eddulan soldiers who’d nearly kidnapped him on that one awful mission.

            _So this is how you want to play it,_ Lance mused, willing panic to stay away from him, reminding himself that this was all a simulation, and this must’ve been a low setting. _Fine. I_ _’ll play._

* * *

            After approximately three hours and seventeen levels on the training deck, Lance was fairly certain he could make a kabob out of someone almost as efficiently as Keith. He’d never actually _reach_ Keith’s level, in his opinion, but he believed he came fairly close.

            He’d battled sims of aliens from all sorts of planets—some he’d encountered, some he hadn’t. He wondered if Lotor was purposely choosing people from places in which he could recall clashing with Voltron in the week before his recapture, or if this was all coincidence.

            _The first one, probably._

            Lotor, over the last month, had gotten even more calculating than he’d been the first time Lance met him officially, on the battlefield where he should’ve shot him dead. Lance found himself picking apart Lotor’s actions almost every other hour, when he wasn’t juggling his Jeremy act and the romance act and the ‘intimidating superior’ act.

            _Focus._

            “Last level,” Lotor said. “This one might be a bit challenging, be warned.”

            Of course it would be _challenging._ Lance blew through  _seventeen levels in three hours_ with a weapon he’d rarely used before now. But Lance just wiped the sweat from his face with the back of his sleeve, pushed back the hair falling into his eyes— _I need to cut this later, it_ _’s getting longer_ —and nodded.

            “Sure,” he said, after swallowing thickly.

            He’d need water after this, definitely.

            The walls shimmered, a desert landscape vanishing. Momentarily, everything blinked white, and then came a setting Lance wasn’t prepared for.

            _No. No, please don_ _’t do this._

            Lance recognized the training deck from the Castle of Lions. He’d know this place anywhere.

            _Don_ _’t falter now._

_Finish strong._

            Still, that first buzz of anxiety crept into his system, his blood turning cold in his veins. The sim he’d be fighting blinked into existence, and Lance had to keep from gasping because of _course,_ of _fucking course_ this was how Lotor was going to make him finish out. One final test to see if he really had amnesia, or if he was faking everything. What better way to do that than to show him the supposedly dead Paladin at the root of his suffering?

            “You never had your final duel with him,” Lotor explained calmly, and Lance could practically hear the smile in his voice, “so I’ve managed to rig this up. You finally get your chance to finish him off, once and for all.”

            It felt as though someone had stuffed cotton in Lance’s mouth. His throat ran dry as he looked at the sim of Keith. It crackled around the edges, but otherwise was a near-perfect replica of the Red Paladin, down to the way he walked and swung his sword at his side.

            They even got the cocky smirk right.

            _R-Red—Blue_ _…?_

            _“Begin simulation,”_ the training deck announced, just as it had on every other level, and Sim-Keith charged.

            Lance ducked left and swung his sword, landing the first blow on the sim, ripping the side of Sim-Keith’s Paladin suit near his abdomen, near the same spot Lance had been injured just a few days ago. Lance suppressed a shudder, suppressed a wince and a cry and the urge to curl up in a ball and call this off.

            _“Why are you running?”_ Sim-Keith taunted. _“Stand your ground! Put up a real fight!”_

            _I don_ _’t want to,_ Lance almost whimpered.

            Instead, he narrowed his eyes, rolled his shoulders, and attacked with every ounce of rage at Lotor he had in his system.

            If he could pretend to love Lotor for a month, he could pretend to hate Keith until the sim was over.

            The best way Lance could describe the ensuing fight was like a dance, a heated one at that, neither side willing to give up their handle on the lead. Every time it appeared as though Sim-Keith had the upper hand, even landing a blow dangerously close to Lance’s neck, Lance retaliated with a blow to the stomach or an arm.

            _“You betrayed us,”_ Sim-Keith snarled, _“so you deserve this.”_

            Sim-Keith spun around and slashed out with his blade, while Lance lunged and stabbed, and swords clanged as Sim-Keith deflected a blow that would’ve run straight through his neck.

            “Really?” Lance snapped back, and side-stepped before bringing down a slash on Sim-Keith’s arm, blow landing hard enough that the sim staggered back to clutch at the wound. “ _You_ _’re_ the reason for all this! If you—if you hadn’t—ugh! _Fuck you and everything you_ _’ve done to me!_ ”

            Lance wanted blood.

            So did the sim.

            The sim gave up on the sword and pounced like a damn lion, knocking Lance off of his feet and onto his back, but Lance was ready nonetheless. He rolled with the impact, and when Sim-Keith went for the neck, Lance brought his sword up and stabbed straight through his abdomen.

            Sim-Keith froze.

            “Your fault,” Lance hissed, tears gathering in the corners of his eyes as he stared up at the gobsmacked expression on the sim’s face. “This. All of this. If you’d just fucking _stayed away,_ none of this would’ve _happened!_ ”

            He hated it. He hated this simulation, he hated that the look on the sim’s face. It was so much, _too much_ like Keith, like the way he’d looked when word got out to the team that he was part Galra, and Allura’d treated him like crap until they’d worked their differences out. The crumpled look on his face when he came to Lance’s door in the middle of the night, freaking out about Shiro’s disappearance. The broken look he’d worn when he stood outside of the door to Lance’s room and sobbed into his jacket.

            “I’m sorry.”

            Lance whispered it in his own broken, barely-audible voice, choking back his own sobs, as the simulation broke up. Sim-Keith went first, disintegrating before Lance’s eyes, and slowly, the rest of the simulation faded away with it. The walls and ceiling and floor went back to white, and then to normal, the glass case around the weapons disappearing, the smug grin on Lotor’s face vanishing two seconds too late, because Lance saw it.

            He saw it, and then he threw up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been looking forward to that fight scene with Keith, as well as a scene in the next chapter, for a long time. THAT'S RIGHT, 21 IS PLOTTED, I KNOW HOW CHAPTER 21 ENDS (IT'S NOT THE END OF THE FANFIC THOUGH BECAUSE I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA HOW LONG IT'LL TAKE TO GET THERE). 
> 
> Next chapter's pretty important, too. (Insert sus eyes emoji here.)
> 
> So, to tide you over to the next chapter, if you haven't read them, I've been posting other fanfics!  
> > **[squad up](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12199533/chapters/27702090)** >>> a modern au chatfic, generally updates anywhere from four times a week to daily, turned three months old yesterday!!  
> > **[my life, my love, my drive](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12981834)** >>> modern au shiro/allura/matt oneshot set over a span of about two years, starting when shiro is 18, about his life after his parents are killed in a car accident.  
> > **[mirage](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13065555)** >>> a klance oneshot set 6 years after the pilot episode of the show, where the war is over, and lance and keith return to earth to scope things out and find lance's family.  
> > **[a knight in dented armor](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13133343)** >>> a sappy klance modern au oneshot, pretty much fluff without plot, also the black lion is there as a cat.  
> > **[just want you here tonight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13153149)** >>> a sappy klance modern au christmas oneshot, where keith goes to the mcclain house for christmas eve.
> 
> > **[deceit so natural pinterest board](https://www.pinterest.com/eileensholo/fic-deceit-so-natural/)** <
> 
> ALRIGHTY, I'm aiming to get the next chapter up before New Year's because I'm excited for it and because I know what actually happens in this one!!  
> SNEAK PEEK/HINTS: Keith, Tiva, getting worse, thievery.


	21. The One in Which Keith and Tiva Scavenge, Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Tiva land on a new planet in hopes of finding supplies and fuel, while their distress signals continue to go unanswered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, as was the situation with chapters 16 and 17 of Dynasty Decapitated, this was gonna be one chapter, but then I was like, _mmm, yeah, still got a lot to write, may as well split it up so there's less of a wait_. So, last chapter, when I said I knew where chapter 21 ended...this wasn't it. But then I wrote the ending lines, and reviewed what I still needed to get through, and went, _yeah that seems suitable_. So, like, that's a thing.
> 
> There aren't really any major trigger warnings here, uhh, Keith and Tiva carry around laser guns...that's all I've got.
> 
> Okay have fun!!

Chapter 21

            Keith and Tiva managed a steady three and a half days of flying, reaching a chain of planets just outside of the Bovona System, before they got low on fuel and realized they didn’t have any more cannisters left on board. Not to mention, food rations were getting lower, and they were completely out of the medicines they’d found in one box in the cargo hold.

            “I can do without it,” Keith said yesterday, when they’d discovered he’d taken the last drop earlier in the morning.

            So far, he was only mildly regretting it. The minor aches were nothing, nausea hadn’t set in yet, and Keith wasn’t feeling weak enough to go lie down. He had no problem riding out illnesses without medication—he’d learned to survive that way. As long as he could pretend this was just another pointless cold, and not a space disease that would kill him in a week if he didn’t find more medicine soon, he’d be _fine._

            “How long till we land?” Tiva asked now, collapsing in the copilot’s chair.

            They’d set their sights on one of the smaller planets of the chain in hopes that they’d be able to find some kind of store or market or whatever the inhabitants used to get their medicine and fuel and other life necessities. Of course, their one problem rested on the money—they had none. When Keith voiced this issue, Tiva had merely replied that they didn’t _need_ money, and Keith understood immediately, unwilling to put up a fight or suggest the moral high ground.

            They were desperate, and the Empire was still after them.

            “Just a few doboshes,” Keith answered.

            He stared out the window as the ship pulled into the planet’s atmosphere. Keith held his breath, waiting for them to be shot out of the sky yet again, but cloudlike cover gave way to lush purple-blue landscape. In the distance, though, Keith could pinpoint the exact spot where landscape stopped, and city began, colors turning dull and gray. His fingers tightened around the steering wheel in front of him as he brought the ship in closer.

            “No airstrips,” Tiva reminded him, and Keith nodded.

            “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he muttered.

            Once they’d set their sights on this planet, they’d devised their plan: hide out in the woods where they couldn’t be found, get to the city on foot, steal what they could, and then hightail it back to the ship before they could get caught. They hadn’t exactly worked out the kinks, like how far away to land, or what would happen if they _were_ to get caught, or if they got separated, but they both had combat training, and they’d just have to hope it would be enough to see them through whatever difficulties arose.

            “Bio scanners and energy scanners indicate that the only signs of life here are the plants,” Tiva said, looking over a computer screen at her right. “So, land wherever you want.”

            _Land wherever you want._ Code for _get as close to the city as you can without being detected._

            Keith brought the ship in toward a clearing in the thick woods they were flying over, trees stirring as they drew closer. He flicked his gaze over to Tiva’s screens, to double-check that these trees and whatever plants they couldn’t see were the only live things here. He _really_ wasn’t keen on another ambush, or ending up in handcuffs aboard another Galra ship or transport vehicle, or being subject to more experiments at the hands of faceless captors.

            “Start prepping to deboard,” Keith said. “Get whatever we need—whatever weapons we’ve got, maps, anything that might be useful. You know better than I do where everything is.”

            “On it,” Tiva responded, and rose from her seat, headed back for the cargo hold.

            The landing went about as smoothly as it could—the clearing was a tight space, even for their ship, which was one of the smaller ones that they could’ve hijacked. While Tiva still gathered supplies in the back, Keith reached for the ship transmitter, to send out yet another distress signal.

            He’d been sending out several over the last few days. Maybe it was a foolish move, revealing his location in a way that would be easy for the Galra to take notice of, but he had no choice. He needed rescue. Without a way to establish direct contact to the castleship, this was his only option.

            “Attention, Voltron. Attention, Castle of Lions.”

            Keith couldn’t bring himself to sound chipper, alert, anything other than utterly _exhausted._

            “This is Keith,” Keith said, slumping back in his seat. “Red Paladin. I’m currently on the planet Chincee in the Rodaga Belt. I need rescue as soon as possible—this is an SOS. I repeat, this is an SOS.”

            Keith shut his eyes. “I’m…sick. I don’t know how much longer I can hold out. This is an SOS for Team Voltron. …Please, _find me_.”

            Keith waited a heartbeat more before shutting the transmitter off.

            For a minute or two he said nothing, eyes still screwed shut, trying to even out his breathing. He’d give Tiva credit—she made no comments as she moved back into the cockpit, choosing to overlook the fact that Keith appeared to be seconds away from losing it. She went about her business, punching in something on the computers before her, syncing things with devices in her hands.

            “So what’ve we got?” Keith finally asked, releasing a breath, willing himself to open his eyes and get moving.

            Tiva handed off one of the devices she held, and Keith turned it over as she set into her explanation.

            “I was able to pull up a rough map of the space between here and the city, and uploaded it to _that._ It’ll give you a 3D hologram of where you’re going, and based on your speed, can calculate approximately how long it’ll take to move between locations. Right now, we’re approximately a varga out from the city on foot, at the average human’s walking speed.”

            Tiva looked out the window and frowned.

            “It’d be in our best interests to move in the dark, so we don’t get caught,” she said. “I did some reading on this place, from whatever information I could pull. They get about ten vargas of darkness and five vargas of light per quintant…unfortunately, we’ve hit it in the middle of their light cycle. The best we can do for now is scope out the area around the ship.”

            Scoping didn’t take very long.

            The vegetation here was thick and squishy, and squelched under Keith’s feet every time he took a step. Not the best for running, but then again, if he couldn’t run on it, then neither could anyone pursuing him.

            The trees here had thick bark that oozed with some kind of gel when Keith pulled a piece off. The ooze was bright pink and _stunk,_ some cross between gasoline and spoiled milk, and Keith made a note to stay away from it. Above them, thick canopies of violet leaves glittered in the sun, pink dew dripping down on them. Their ship would be covered in the smelly gunk in no time, at this rate.

            Still, Keith would take this place over captivity any day of the week.

            “Do we know if this is safe?” Keith asked, peering at a puddle of pink on the ground.

            Tiva shrugged. “My scanners aren’t indicating anything particularly harmful to humans _or_ Galra…so it’s probably safe.”

            _Probably,_ Keith repeated sarcastically in his head. This was the desert all over again—making guesses as to what would and wouldn’t kill him if he touched it or consumed it, and hoping his guesses were right.

            _I did fine then, I can do fine now._

            “So,” Tiva said, and leaned against the side of the ship, while Keith continued to take in the quiet landscape around them, “we’ve got time to kill. May as well get to know each other. I really don’t know much about you, beyond that you’re the Red Paladin and part Galra, and _you_ don’t know much about _me_ other than I was a hacker on Lotor’s ship, and part of the Blade.”

            “Well, there’s not much else worth knowing about me,” Keith replied, and dropped his voice. “Not much that’s important, anyway.”

            “Seriously?” Tiva crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “Nothing? There’s _nothing?_ ”

            Keith shrugged and scuffed his foot against the soil. “I mean…not really.”

            “Oh, come _on,_ there’s gotta be something. Here, you know what? I’ll go first.”

            Tiva slid down against the side of the ship until she was sitting. Keith stood where he was, until Tiva gestured for him to sit down, too, pointing out that there was nothing adverse about being on the ground. Keith sighed and sat down without putting up a fight, Tiva smiling as he did so.

            “So what are you gonna tell me?” Keith asked, doing his best to sound like talking swapping stories about their personal lives wasn’t about to be his own brand of hell.

            “What do you wanna know?” Tiva asked, tipping her chin. “I’m an open book.”

            “I don’t—I’m not—ugh, okay, what was it like on Lotor’s ship, I guess? Like, being undercover. I guess. Since apparently Lance and I are bad at it.”

            Some look crossed Tiva’s face at his mention of Lance, a look Keith couldn’t read, and one he really didn’t want to. He really would rather have just gotten this over with and gotten moving toward the city.

            _Can_ _’t get what we want._ His fingers curled around whatever this was on the ground that passed for grass—until he felt goop between his fingers, and found that the little not-grassblades were absolutely full of the stuff. He made no noise as he slowly wiped his hand on a section of grass he hadn’t been ripping up, and then focused on Tiva.

            “I mean,” Tiva started, and leaned her head back against the side of the ship, gazing up at the treetops, “it was easy enough, for a while. There were what, fifteen of us at first?”

            Tiva’s voice grew softer, almost as though she were in her own little world, as she began counting off the members of the Blade of Marmora that she’d spent time aboard Lotor’s ship with: “Me, Kilzee, Pinene, Rivvin…Bix, Cosso…Mirak…”

            After that, there was no stopping her.

            “Most days were simple. Lotor was oblivious—we were running undercover operations no problem, feeding information back to Kolivan. The problem was that there wasn’t _enough_ information to feed. Lotor didn’t play by the Empire’s rules, not even when he ascended. He didn’t disclose his plans to anyone except Haggar, when she joined him. He switched up. One day we were campaigning on a planet, and the next day we were leaving without an explanation. He was always most focused on fighting Voltron…but he became especially hyperfixated after your first infiltration.”

            _You mean hyperfixated on Lance,_ Keith thought.

            He had no problem picturing Lotor’s skeezy smiles at Lance, and shuddered when he remembered the transmissions. When he remembered Lance playing along, cuddling up to the Emperor, fully aware of what he was doing, acting as though he knew nothing.

            Keith wondered what Lance was up to now.

            “Before the infiltration, we could access the computers and send whatever we needed to without running the risk of getting caught—his most loyal officers didn’t care,” Tiva went on, grabbing Keith’s attention. “We spent our free time talking trash about him. He never suspected a thing, because he was always off doing whatever he wanted. The fifteen of us on that ship became good friends with each other and with non-Blade members. Most of his officers had their suspicions. But no one ever acted on them and turned us over.”

            Tiva’s distant gaze darkened.

            “After the infiltration…things got worse. Rivvin was the oldest and wisest of us, and to see him killed was like lighting a fuse. He kept a lot of the younger ones in line. The younger ones…they were some of the first to be killed, once the hunt started. Most of them went in Lotor’s mass execution in the arena, right after you and Lance were rescued.”

            Keith’s stomach churned.

            He wished Tiva would just _stop talking,_ because he knew how this story ended—a bunch of his officers were gassed and shot into space, and were supposed to die. Mirak was the only one left aboard Lotor’s ship. Mirak was supposed to think all of her friends were gone, because she had no idea that by some fluke, Tiva had made it out.

            He didn’t need Tiva to go on explaining how he and Lance had indirectly caused so much _suffering._

            She went on anyway.

            She talked all about the tight-knit group she’d formed with Mirak, Bix, and Cosso, and Keith could only think about his own team, far away from here. Tiva talked about the way her group playfully fought over who was pulling the most weight, how they vowed to protect each other, and made sure the others were safe, checking in after another of Lotor’s rages, covering them where one fell short so Lotor wouldn’t become suspicious.

            “Please, stop,” Keith found himself muttering at one point, and Tiva paused. “I-I’m sorry, I can’t…”

            “I understand,” Tiva said. “You miss your team, too.”

            _It_ _’s more than that,_ Keith didn’t say, and opted for a nod instead.

            “Someone you’re missing in particular?” Tiva asked, and Keith was surprised to hear her voice soft.

            How did Keith explain this one? He more than missed Lance—even after what had to be nearly a month of being without him, everything still felt inexplicably _wrong._ Team Voltron was a well-oiled machine of which Keith was part, and being without the team itself already felt as though he were out of place, like he was missing several pieces. _Lance_ , inarguably, was the biggest piece, for a million reasons Keith’s heart ached to think about.

            “Yeah,” he replied, after a few moments too long of silence.

            Tiva waited for him to go on, but Keith rose on unsteady feet and started back for the interior of the ship.

            “I’m gonna go get rest before we head out,” he said, waving a dismissive hand.

            “So you’re not gonna talk about your boyfriend?”

            Tiva’s voice cut across tense silence when Keith was halfway up the boarding ramp. He froze mid-step, fists automatically curling at his side, anger tearing hot through his system. He almost turned around—almost. In the back of his mind, he pictured himself whirling around and losing it, but then Lance was there, a calming hand on his back, guiding him away with some quip over his shoulder to Tiva.

            So Keith strode back into the ship without a word.

* * *

            He didn’t rest.

            He tried, as hard as he could, to get even a few minutes’ worth of sleep, but unconsciousness evaded him. He ended up spending three hours sitting in the cockpit in silence, staring out at the forest beyond as the sky grew darker, and the distant stars became brighter. He considered getting up when he heard Tiva finally climb back into the ship, and begin moving things around in the back, but decided against it.

            He also decided against another distress signal. Maybe he’d send one out when they got back from their excursion, but for now, it was best not to. Too many would be a dead giveaway to the Galra, and Keith had been captured by them enough times.

            “You almost ready?” Tiva asked, poking her head into the cockpit, and automatically, Keith tensed.

            Tiva must’ve taken notice. She slid into the copilot’s chair and spun until she was facing Keith, hands folded in her lap.

            “Look,” she said, “I’m sorry about earlier. I thought I’d be able to get you to open up a little. Obviously, it’s a touchy subject. I’m sorry.”

            Keith pulled his legs onto his chair, drawing his knees to his chest. Tiva watched him carefully, and Keith recognized the analytical glint in her eyes. A survival trait she possessed that somehow, he didn’t. He didn’t take his sweet time looking things over before deciding the best course of action, he just _did._

            “Me too,” Keith muttered, dragging a hand through knotty hair. “I—”

            He paused, frowned. He couldn’t see himself dredging up his backstory for Tiva, no matter how many times she’d saved him and the team.

            “I’m not good at talking,” Keith settled. “A-About myself. Or feelings. And Lance…”

            A flash of a winning smile. Finger guns at a roaring crowd of newly-saved civilians. Endless gushing about whatever cool stunt he and Blue had pulled during a final showdown.

            Slumped shoulders and averted eyes. A hood pulled tight over brown hair. Defeat down to his core.

_I. M. O. K._

            _“I thought about spending time getting to know you and being your boyfriend and exploring whatever this is.”_

_“Me too. That. That’s what I want.”_

            “Lance,” Keith repeated, exhaling a shaky breath. “We didn’t really get the chance to define, exactly, what…whatever we were. A-Are. We were just gonna let it play out for a while, and see where it went. We knew where we wanted to go, down the road. This just isn’t the road we were counting on. You…you meant well. I know what you were trying to do. The way you said it, just…”

            _“You missed such a…beautiful asset to the Empire.”_

 _“You just could_ not _stay away from me, mmm, Lance?_ _”_

_“Take their helmets. I’d like a full view of their faces. Especially his handsome one.”_

            Keith flexed his fingers, willing them to stay uncurled.

            “It sounded like a threat,” Tiva finished for him.

            “Yeah.”

            Tiva opened her mouth slightly, then frowned, hesitant to go on.

            “Where…,” she started, then stopped, peering out the windows at the darkening forest.

            The pink ooze from the trees was glowing, illuminating the surrounding area. Keith joined Tiva in her staring, leaning against the control panels of the ship to get a better view.

            “Bioluminescent tree sludge,” Tiva remarked. “Didn’t expect that one.”

            “Me neither,” Keith breathed.

            He pushed away from the controls and headed for the ramp at once, stepping out into foul-smelling air to get a better view. He hardly paid mind to Tiva following suit as he clamored down the ramp, vegetation making a squishing sound as he set foot on it. This was a sight he would never see on Earth, let alone in a shack in the middle of a desert. It struck him, then, how much he wished to not be the only Paladin here.

            Hunk would’ve gotten to work looking at the culinary properties of the vegetation here, and probably figured out how to make the sludge smell good enough to make Keith want to eat it. Pidge would’ve tried to analyze it for more scientific purposes, maybe medicinal, probably technological. Shiro would’ve been in sheer awe, Keith was sure. And Lance…

            _This would be a nice date spot._

            Keith couldn’t help the thought, smile faltering. He also couldn’t help picturing Lance at his side, relaxed, fingers loosely intertwined, glowing in soft pink light.

            “We better get moving,” Keith finally said. “Uh—do we have everything we need?”

            He turned around, and caught sight of Tiva. She gestured to a pile of supplies she’d left by the side of the ship hours ago—two identical backpacks, a couple of laser guns, and cloth.

            “Yep.”

            It didn’t take them very long to get ready. Keith tied one of the cloths over the bottom half of his face, from the bridge of his nose, just over his scar, and down. He tore a strip from another piece of cloth and tied his hair back as best he could, just to keep it from falling into his face to the point where it would be more of harm than help. Tiva, meanwhile, tied one of the cloths around the top of her head, enough to conceal furry, purple, bear-like ears.

            “We have laser guns,” Keith said, picking one up, “but not knives?”

            Tiva shrugged and slung her backpack on. “Listen, it wasn’t like I could browse each ship for the best supplies before we hijacked one. We were kind of in a tight situation.”

            “Sorry,” Keith said with a roll of his eyes. “I’m just more of a blade person.”

            Tiva laughed dryly. “I got it. Blade. Very funny.”

            Keith furrowed his brow. “Wha—oh.”

            He didn’t laugh—he merely continued on with getting his things together. He ended up finding a holster for the gun within the contents of his backpack, and slung it around his waist. It didn’t feel right, riding low on his hips, but it would have to do. He sheathed the gun and then shrugged on an oversized shawl he also found inside the bag. He put on the backpack last, and waited for Tiva as she finished adjusting her own flimsy disguise.

            In addition to the cloth tied over her head, she had her shawl tied around her waist, almost like a skirt, until she pointed out to Keith that she’d constructed a makeshift pouch to carry even more goods. She made this point by gesturing with the gun she’d opted for carrying, _not at all_ off-putting to Keith.

            “Should we like, come up with code names or something?” Keith asked, once he and Tiva started their walk toward the city, on the blind hope that their ship wouldn’t be attacked or stolen while they were gone.

            “Why would we need code names?” Tiva asked, settling her gun on her shoulder in a manner that was much too Lance-like for Keith to handle.

            Keith shrugged, casting his gaze toward the ground.

            “I mean, in case we get separated, I guess? I don’t know—I just don’t think it’s a good idea for us to be screaming each others’ names if we get lost. I don’t know if you _noticed_ , but I have a bounty on my head. If anyone gets wind I’m here…”

            Tiva studied Keith, in all of his concern.

            “No one knows who I am, and everyone else who knows me thinks I’m dead,” Tiva said. “I’ll be sticking with my name. You, on the other hand…got any ideas in mind?”

            _Ryou._

            Keith hadn’t realized he said it out loud, until Tiva cocked her head.

            “Wasn’t that the one you used when you went undercover?”

            “Yeah,” Keith said. “It, uh…came to mind on reflex, I guess.”

            “Good enough for me,” Tiva said.

            And they walked on in silence.

* * *

            A high stone wall encircled the entire city, Keith and Tiva found out, as the woods ended abruptly in shades of black and gray.

            “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Keith whispered, craning his neck to take in the full view of the wall. “How the hell are we supposed to get around this thing?”

            Tiva pulled one of the tablets out of her bag, and seconds later, faint blue light illuminated her face as a hologram came to life in front of her. It was a map, and it displayed a small model of the city that Tiva had likely yanked from the ship. She toyed with it delicately, spinning the projection until she came upon a gate.

            “This is where we need to get,” she said, and then traced a short line with her finger. “There’s the market. We—” she spun the projection, and a forest erected itself before her, “—are right here.” She poked at the projection, and a little red dot appeared on the hologram. “We’re another five, ten doboshes maximum away from the gate. Even less if we run, but I’m keen on conserving energy.”

            “Any reason in particular that there’s a gate?” Keith asked. “I mean, I’m grateful that there _is one,_ I’m just surprised.”

            Tiva shot him a look. “I didn’t exactly spend time studying up on this planet’s history. Come on.”

            Tiva led the pair of them around the gate, where they kept low, near the bushes and vines that crawled up the side of the building, all of them oozing the glowing slime. By the time they were through here, Keith decided that their next objective was finding a water source, because when they were finished, he had no doubt they’d be glowing, too.

            “Shit,” Tiva muttered, after a while of walking, and threw a hand out in front of Keith.

            She wordlessly pointed up. Here, Keith could see spikes of some metal, high in the air—it must’ve been the gate. On either side of the spikes were two guard towers, each of them lit on the inside. Keith narrowed his eyes, and spied ladders and ropes on the outside of the wall, leading up to decks running around the towers—for quick get-downs in an emergency that required pursuit, probably.

            “You have a plan?” Keith asked.

            Tiva waved her gun at Keith. “We break through the gate. If we get caught, we _nicely_ ask the guards to let us in.”

            There was probably an easier way of going about this, but if there was, it didn’t make itself known to Keith. He nodded along, and unsheathed his own gun.

            “Let’s move.”

            Tiva went first, peering around the side of the wall as they finally reached the gate. She glanced back and motioned with her head for Keith to follow. They slunk undetected underneath the guard towers. They finally reached the gate, only to find the bars spaced further apart than they expected.

            Wide enough for Keith to get through no problem, and just enough for Tiva to slide in after him.

            “How big are the people who live here?” Keith asked, voice going high as he peered again at the guard towers, trying to discern the sizes of the guards.

            “No time for questioning,” Tiva said. “We’re gonna have to make a trip back through while we have our hands full.”

            Tiva pulled up the hologram of the city as soon as she and Keith were far enough away from the guard towers that they were confident they wouldn’t be detected. They crouched low to the ground to examine the map, Tiva tracing their route with her finger.

            “I don’t want to be here long,” Tiva whispered. “I say we try and stay on this planet another quintant if we have to, so we focus on one thing tonight—whatever we find first, either supplies or fuel. Take what you can carry, and get back through that gate. We meet up here.”

            Tiva pointed to the red spot on the map where they’d first pulled it up, outside of the city walls. Keith studied the location for a moment, then nodded.

            “Don’t wander far,” Tiva warned, “and don’t get into trouble.”

            She looked over her shoulder, and listened to the surrounding city. She and Keith were both met with silence, something that, in Keith’s opinion, shouldn’t have been occurring. This was a city. Every city he’d ever come across still buzzed with life in the dead of night, and especially should’ve on a planet where it was dark more than it was light.

            “Be alert,” Keith said. “Something about this…I don’t like it.”

            Tiva nodded, clapped Keith’s shoulder, and then started down one of the many spiraling dirt paths that branched off from their location. Keith started down another, and took out his own tablet. He pulled up the map and turned on his location—seconds later, Tiva’s location blinked onto the map.

            _Okay._

            Keith made it a point to study his surroundings, treading slowly, making his footfalls as silent as he could manage. The city’s paths seemed to be caged in by walls, and Keith wondered what the view in a direct flyover of this place would be like, if it would be the black and gray maze he was envisioning.

            _Why so many walls?_

            Vegetation here either crawled up the walls, dripping pink slime, or choked out and died on the ground, bluish and flatly sprawling across the walkway. Keith nearly tripped on several dead vines, until the wall to his right stopped entirely, giving way to what appeared to be the market Tiva was talking about. Rows upon rows of stalls or small buildings…all seemingly unoccupied.

            _Where is everyone?_

            Ghost towns never registered well with Keith. Half the time they were traps—but then again, who could’ve been aware that he and Tiva were coming?

            _Focus. You need supplies, medicine, or fuel. Find something._

            The problem was, whatever alien language was scrawled all over everything, Keith couldn’t read it. The symbols made even less sense to him than Altean did, and Altean required a whole range of mental gymnastics to it figure out. He did, though, recognize a few drawings next to some booths—some depicted things that Keith guessed were food, while others were tools.

            _“Efnue!”_

            Keith whipped his head around, searching for the source of the shout that he supposed was in the alien language he couldn’t understand. His eyes widened when he spied an alien with three heads and a wide body, at least seven feet tall, standing behind him, holding something that looked like a club.

            _Shit._

Keith backed up and raised his gun as the alien began taunting him in whatever language they spoke, as a second and third alien appeared from behind and flanked them. The aliens were all wearing similar outfits, a distinct symbol tattooed on the forehead of the center head.

            “I-I don’t mean you harm,” Keith said, when he finally had a chance to interject. “I just need medicine and fuel, and I’ll be on my way.”

            _“Ascrue!”_ another voice cut in, yet again from behind Keith, and Keith pivoted, in time to see a group of four aliens approaching. These ones had two heads and were slightly skinnier than the other ones, but were even _taller._ These ones each had a strip of white running down the center of their right-side faces, and it appeared to be some kind of body paint, rather than a birthmark.

            It dawned on Keith, then, that he’d just stumbled into a turf war.

            And potentially a war over who got to kill him or keep him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)
> 
> So, now, if I can actually get to where I need to get, ahem, [clears throat]: _I know how chapter 22 eeeeeends~_
> 
> SEE YA THEN >;)


	22. The One in Which Keith and Tiva Scavenge, Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Tiva continue their hunt for supplies; with his condition worsening and fate more and more uncertain, Keith sends out his final distress signal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On Instagram I asked y'all about Keith being emotionally traumatized and you all told me not to, so I did the thing.
> 
> Also, I burst into tears while writing this chapter. Blame my writing playlists.
> 
>  ** _IMPORTANT_ TRIGGER WARNINGS**  
>  Keith has a **mental breakdown** during this chapter, including **feelings of worthlessness, guilt, and isolationist thoughts** , but most importantly, **_suicidal thoughts_**.  
>  >>If you need to skip, the breakdown starts at the line _Keith rolled over, onto his side_ and ends with the line _He didn't notice Tiva_.  
>  >>>>If you just need to skip the suicidal thoughts, they occur in the paragraph beginning with _An enraged, animalistic sound_.
> 
> Tread carefully. I've been waiting a long time to write this chapter.

Chapter 22

            Keith didn’t know very many alien swears. Hell, there were still _Earth_ swears he’d been learning before he got in a blue robot lion and went to space. Still, if the intensity with which these aliens were throwing words around and making lewd-seeming gestures was any indication…they weren’t exactly talking _nicely_ to or about each other.

            He suspected they weren’t singing high praises about him, either, when one of the three-headed aliens flippantly gestured to him and said something that caused the others to study him.

            Suspicious grins, apparently, were a universal thing.

            Keith should’ve just raised the gun and fired and been done with it, but he was really trying not to leave a body count here. He just needed medicine, supplies, and fuel. Then he’d be _gone,_ and these people could pretend they’d never seen him in the first place. Unfortunately, communicating that to them seemed to be a hopeless cause—especially when the two groups were suddenly smiling at each other and converging on him.

            Keith backed up as far as he could, any words he thought of dying in his throat. He flinched when he hit the edge of one of the stalls, a stony booth that looked like it was selling some sort of fruit, if the bright colors of the wares in the baskets were any indication. Great. If he was alone to do his scavenging as he was supposed to be, this would’ve been a good find. But not now. Not when there were seven aliens willing to pummel him.

            “Don’t come any closer,” Keith warned, making a show of lifting his gun. “I don’t want to use this.”

            Really, it wasn’t his place to be intruding on these aliens’ business. Maybe they’d understand. Maybe they’d let him go.

            _Oh, who am I kidding?_ There was no way he was going to get out of this one without a fight.

            One of the three-headed aliens brandished their club at Keith, while two of the two-headed aliens drew what appeared to be scimitars from sheaths on their backs.

            _Blades._

            He needed one. At least one. Even better if he could get his hands on two. But that meant he’d need to get in close range of aliens much bigger and probably much stronger than him. Aliens in perfect-seeming health, while his sickness threatened to take control and bring him down at any time.

            _“Aggreue!”_ the three-headed alien at the front of the group ordered, and all at once, the aliens charged for Keith.

            Keith ducked underneath swings from fists and clubs and slashes from blades, one blow barely glancing off his left. He turned around and fired his gun, while the aliens were too busy trying to figure out where the hell he’d just gone to. He brought down one of the two-headed aliens in a twitching, convulsing heap. The other aliens whirled on him when he dove for one of the scimitars. He’d barely brushed his fingertips over one when one of the three-headed aliens bore down on him with a club. He ducked his head out of the way and took a blow to the collarbone, crying out as a snap sounded.

            “TIVA!” he yelled, a guttural sound tearing from his throat, and swung around with his gun as the alien came in for another blow. He fired, the laser blast missing the alien’s leftmost head by several inches. He grit his teeth and rolled, and the club came down over the dead body of the first alien he’d shot. An alien with scimitars was waiting for him—they slashed, one blade cutting across Keith’s cheek, narrowly avoiding his eye, while the other went a few inches too far over his back.

            Keith raised the gun and fired, and struck this alien square in the chest. They fell, and Keith wasted no time shoving his gun in its holster. He lunged, and snagged one blade before another alien bashed his side with a club. Keith rolled with the impact, ignoring the fact that he was pretty sure his rib just snapped. He could breathe fine—no punctured lung meant he was good to keep going.

            He attacked the alien who’d bashed him, first going with downward slashes, forcing the alien backwards. The alien swung out with the club, Keith deflecting each swing with the scimitar before he lunged with a stab, blade embedding itself in the alien’s chest. He twisted and yanked, and kicked the alien back. He, too, stumbled, into the waiting arms of another alien with a scimitar. He swung backwards and up with his blade, before the alien could decapitate him. He knew the alien was dead the moment its arms went slack, and cool pink blood spilled down over Keith. He wrenched away from the body and took up another blade.

            Four down. Three to go.

            “TIVA!” Keith yelled again.

            The aliens must’ve taken it as some sort of insult or war cry—the three of them charged at once, attacking from all angles. Keith engaged the last one with scimitars, going for a lunge with one sword while he deflected with another.

            The aliens were ready.

            One of the ones with clubs bashed Keith’s back from behind, and Keith fell forward, one sword clattering out of his hands while his gun fell from its holster. He couldn’t catch himself in time to avoid smashing his chest into the ground, and at once, his entire torso lit with pain. Stars exploded in Keith’s line of vision, while he rolled onto his back to avoid a sword coming down for his neck. He grunted, bringing his sword up as best he could to block, and metal clanged against metal. The alien pressed down harder, and Keith’s blade threatened to slip from his hands at any time.

            “TIVA!” he shrieked, so loudly his voice cracked. “I NEED YOU!”

            The other aliens moved in while Keith was down, swiping the sword he’d dropped and his gun. One of them leveled the gun at his head, and Keith squeezed his eyes shut at the sound of the gun firing not once, but three times—

            —and found he wasn’t dead.

            The alien with the gun toppled over, all three heads blown off.

            The other two aliens attacking Keith whipped their heads up, toward the walls, and a whole new group of aliens dropped onto the scene, Tiva among them. She rushed forward, shooting the last of the scimitar-wielding aliens in both heads without so much as flinching. That left the one with a club. With the choice between ending Keith or killing Tiva, the alien attacked Tiva—it wasn’t like Keith posed much of a threat in his current state.

            The alien only made it two steps before one of the new ones shot its head off.

            “Ke—Ryou!” Tiva exclaimed, crashing to her knees next to him, setting to work immediately at assessing the damage done.

            “Good to see you,” Keith muttered. “Who’re your friends?”

            “Some locals I convinced to help me out,” Tiva answered, frowning at the cut along Keith’s face. “What happened to you?”

            “Ambush,” Keith answered, and tried to sit up. He grimaced, as the adrenaline rush began to fade, painstakingly making his way upright. Tiva’s hands hovered near him, prepped to help, but Keith waved her off.

            “What hurts?” Tiva asked.

            “Everything,” Keith replied.

            Tiva glared. “I’d appreciate knowing, so our friends over here can help you out.”

            Keith looked at the aliens who’d come to help him again. These ones had two heads, too, but weren’t as tall as the ones that had ambushed him. Where the other aliens’ skin had been dull and vaguely ashen, these ones shimmered. Their two heads were tattooed with strange symbols that must’ve marked them as another gang.

            Something about them still unsettled Keith, but he kept that thought to himself—he needed aid.

            “Well,” Keith said, and coughed, “I’m pretty sure I broke my collarbone. One of them whacked me in the back—dunno how I’m gonna be walking. I _can_ feel my legs, but…you know, I just got the crap kicked out of me, so. Oh, also, my rib. It snapped.”

            Tiva gave a low whistle. “Damn. How the hell did you hold out as long as you did?”

            Keith shrugged, and then winced.

            “Stubbornness?”

            Tiva shook her head at him. “We’ve gotta get you patched up and back to the ship. Our supplies can wait. These guys said they could help me find medicine for you, and they’ll help you with these injuries. Supplies can come after, once we’re sure you’re okay.”

            “No,” Keith said. “We came out here for supplies. We need to get off this planet before the Galra find us, we need—”

            “ _You_ need to rest,” Tiva interrupted. “If we move, then your friends won’t find us, either. We can stay here for a few quintants. We can’t risk you getting any worse than you already are.”

            She dropped her voice and moved in closer, pretending to assess the cut on Keith’s face. “Voltron needs its Red Paladin. Your friends need their Keith.”

            Tiva drew back and gave Keith a grim smile, before turning around and motioning for the other aliens to come over. She began speaking in their tongue, something Keith hadn’t expected. He tried to listen, and maybe pick up on a few words, but overall, the conversation was lost to him.

            “Alright,” Tiva said to Keith, after a while, “these guys are gonna lift you, and we’re gonna take you somewhere to get checked out, okay?”

            “Don’t see I have much of a choice,” Keith responded.

            Even Tiva’s warning could not prepare him for the onslaught of pain that came on the moment the aliens surrounded him and hoisted him up.

            Keith groaned, and failed to suppress a whimper as the aliens got moving. Tiva followed them, gun in full view to show that she meant business—any harm inflicted to Keith would result in immediate death, no holds barred. Keith, meanwhile, let the sword he held fall out of his grip. He barely registered Tiva stooping to pick it up; the pain became another punch in itself, as Keith’s vision blurred with unshed tears, and his heartbeat pounded in his ears.

            At some point, he stopped hearing the aliens talking amongst themselves altogether. At some point, he stopped being able to see the tops of the walls of this city, bleak skyline fading to black. At some point, consciousness released its hold on him, and he drifted away.

* * *

            He woke up on a makeshift cot in the ship. He recognized the dull smell of must against the sharp scent of metal, the flickering light of the one faulty bulb in the ceiling above him, the stiff feel of boards and rods and fabric used to make something to support his weight. He shifted and tried to sit up with a moan—his entire body was sore as hell, his injured areas even more so.

            He glanced down at his body. Someone had gotten him cleaned up and dressed his wounds, and got him something warmer to wear. He wore fabric that hadn’t been on the ship, wrapped over whatever shreds remained of his original Paladin jumpsuit. The fabric covered up the bandages that wrapped all the way around his midsection, both his broken rib and his bruised back. The right side of his collarbone, too, was wrapped, and he found it particularly difficult to get much use out of his right arm.

            _At least now my Blade scar won_ _’t stick out so much,_ Keith thought, flashing back to when a Marmorite soldier landed a slice there, in the Trials of Marmora. He shuddered at the memory, especially the more he thought about it, and the more it morphed into the trap on Tarvin Three, then the ambush on this planet, and on Ven, and the escape from Ruovi…

            _Ruovi. Tiva._

            Keith sat up straighter now, straining his ears as he listened to the sounds of the ship. Electricity buzzed through the lights in the ceiling, but other than that, Keith heard nothing. The rest of the ship was powered down, to conserve as much energy as possible, it would’ve appeared.

            “Tiva?” Keith called out tentatively. His voice echoed through the small section of the ship he’d been moved to, and he earned no response.

            Something cold pooled in Keith’s stomach. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, ignoring the pain flaring up in his torso every time he moved. He got to his feet slowly, and shivered once the thin blankets that’d been wrapped around him fell off of his shoulders. He ended up taking the blanket with him, pulling it tighter about himself as he peered into the entryway and cockpit of the ship.

            Empty.

            Keith’s eyes landed on the shut hatch, and the cold began clawing up his insides, climbing into his throat. He backed up, back toward the cot outside of the entrance to the cargo hold, out of the view of the front windows, where daylight streamed through. He backed up until the back of his knees hit the cot, and he stumbled and fell. He narrowly avoided whacking his head on the wall the cot rested up against, and shifted until he was lying back down, staring back up at the ceiling, heart hammering away in his chest.

            _She abandoned you. She saw what you did to those aliens._

            Keith’s chest tightened as he wondered how he must’ve looked when Tiva stumbled upon him, coated in bright pink blood that wasn’t his, beaten to a pulp. He could’ve run. He could’ve cut himself down a path and tore out of there, but he stayed. He fought. He saw now the aliens he’d killed—some fried, some headless, some stabbed, all of them lifeless on the ground. All of them at his hand.

            _You didn_ _’t even stop to think._

            He’d been a flurry of motion. Move out of the way, seize the opening, dodge, take whatever advantage he could. He was a foreigner on this planet, in a place he had no business being in. He _took lives._ He had no idea what the customs here were, the legal system, how these people operated, and he’d killed four of them before they managed to knock  him down. Not to mention, _how many had he killed on Ruovi?_ And how many died in his rescue on Ven?

            Keith rolled over, onto his side, hissing at the sudden pressure on his rib, and ended up rolling onto his stomach, gathering his flimsy pillow into his arms, pressing it into his face. He ignored the throbbing pain running through his right arm and shoulder as his eyes blurred and burned. Keith squeezed them shut as the first sob wrenched its way out of him.

            _I killed them._

_I killed all of them._

_Tiva_ _’s gone._

            _I_ _’m all alone._

_Again._

Suppressing his cries became a failing effort. Before long, Keith was openly sobbing, borderline scream-crying, body hunched into a ball, hands knotted in his hair. Tears flowed down his face, stinging as they met the cut along his cheek. His nose clogged, and Keith began choking.

            _They all leave, one way or another. You were meant to be alone._

            All alone, sick and injured and dying in the middle of _fucking nowhere_ in _space._

            He’d never have ended up here if he didn’t let himself get close to people. If he’d just continued going about his own business, he wouldn’t have been sent with Lance to Tarvin Three, he would’ve been sent with Pidge to Tarvin One. He’d have gone about his duties, would’ve escaped in one piece, and would’ve been back at the castle. Hell, if he’d left the team when he wanted to, when he realized sooner than everyone else that he was nothing but a fucking _burden,_ they’d be operating smoothly. They wouldn’t have had to be looking for him. Lotor would never have ended up talking to Lance, because Lance wouldn’t have had to defend his sorry ass on the battlefield because he’d been knocked out. Their infiltration mission never would’ve happened, Lance would never have become the object of Lotor’s creepy affections, and the team would’ve been carrying out missions as planned. Maybe Voltron, with Lance as their right arm and Allura as their leg, would’ve taken him down already.

            _You wouldn_ _’t even be in space if you’d shut down Shiro way back at the Garrison._ If Shiro never took him under his wing, Keith wouldn’t have given two _shits_ about the Kerberos mission. He’d have an attitude problem, sure, but he was the Garrison’s number one pilot. He would’ve still had a life ahead of him on Earth as Iverson’s star—he wouldn’t have been _dying on some random planet_ all by himself in a ship with _no damn fuel._

            _This is what happens._

_Everyone leaves. They disappear, they abandon you, or they die._

            _And it_ _’s always because of you._

            His mom couldn’t handle a child. His dad must’ve been overwhelmed raising him and given out somewhere, never to be seen again. Shiro would never have been lost to the Galra a second time if Keith hadn’t dragged him out to his shack, and then to look for the Blue Lion. Lotor would never have gone after Lance. And Tiva wouldn’t have given up on him to save her own skin.

            He’d never have interacted with Lance. He’d never have met Tiva.

            If he’d only just _stayed in his own damn lane._

            _All you do is cause trouble. They told you that from the very beginning._

Elementary school—teachers saw him and saw something dark hovering over his head, and the daggers he shot at other kids as he kept to himself. Middle school, turning down every friendly advance that came his way. Teachers called him the “strong, silent type,” and Keith knew it was code for “unfriendly, unsociable, don’t approach unless necessary.” Once he was old enough for the Garrison, it was his instructors. Iverson. Ryu. Dos Santos.

            _Something off about that Kogane kid. Something dangerous. He_ _’s prone to violence. Turn it into something we can use._

            An enraged, animalistic sound ripped itself from Keith’s throat and filled the entire ship. He dropped his pillow and hunched further in on himself, clawing at his chest, at the spot where his heart threatened to burst. Tears dripped onto the exposed parts of his arm, onto his hands and the tangled blanket. They ran down his nose, his face, his neck, and for a moment Keith wished they’d fill his lungs so he could just fucking drown and be done with this.

            He lost himself in his sorrow, so much so that he didn’t hear the hatch open, or Tiva frantically shouting his name, or the footsteps pounding through the ship until they reached his bedside.

            He didn’t notice Tiva until she reached for his shoulder, and he recoiled so hard that his injured arm hit the wall.

            “Holy shit,” Tiva whispered, “what happened?”

            Keith opened and closed his mouth several times as he stared at Tiva with the look of a cornered animal that’s just realized it’s got nowhere left to run or hide.

            “Y-You…,” Keith stammered, eyes wide, entire body quaking.

            “I didn’t think you’d be awake for a few more vargas,” Tiva started gently. “I was out. I went back to the market to see what I could do about fuel. Did…did you think…?”

            _…Shit._

_Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT._

            Tiva nodded slowly, piecing things together, unwilling to say anything out loud.

            “I went to go get fuel,” she clarified, in an even calmer tone than before. “Or find some, anyway. So far, I haven’t had any luck. I didn’t want to wake you when you’re recovering, but now that you’re better…or at least, _awake,_ I’m gonna explain what’s happened since you fell asleep.”

            “How long?” Keith rasped.

            Tiva grimaced. “In our relative time…about a quintant. On this planet’s time…about a quintant and a half, a little more than that. We’re at the height of the light cycle.”

            A day lost.

            An entire day _lost._

            Keith scrubbed a hand over his face, wiping away the last of the tears, trying to straighten out his vision. “What did I miss?”

            “Well,” Tiva said, “this planet doesn’t have any medicine for you. They can’t match whatever was done to you on Ven…which means we need to leave as soon as we can, if rescue doesn’t come in the next quintant. As far as your injuries go, you got bandaged up as best we could manage. Until you can get back to the Castle of Lions, things will have to heal naturally, which means no physical exertion. Nothing strenuous. You’re not coming with me on any more trips to the city. So far, I’ve been back and forth twice. I got weapons—yes, I got blades—and I got food and some extra clothes. Fuel is apparently hard to come by here, since they don’t have many visitors or many travelers.”

            “Right,” Keith said quietly. “Because nothing is ever easy.”

            Tiva sighed. “Yeah. I was going to go back out and do some scouting, to see if there’s anything edible nearby, maybe something sort of like water to keep you hydrated, but then I heard you screaming. Are you okay?”

            _Never been further from it,_ Keith thought as he mumbled, “I guess.”

            Tiva gave him a skeptical look but didn’t push the matter.

            “I’m going to head on out now, if you’re okay being here. I left a blade over by the pilot’s chair in case you need it. Try not to need it.”

            And then she spun on her heel and left, before Keith could ask her how she knew so much about all of these different planets, or how she was able to pick up on it so quickly, or why she was even attempting to be nice to him even after he’d been downright awful, or if she was really leaving for good this time, and was just lying—

            _Stop. Stop that, right now._

            Keith listened to the sound of the hatch shutting before he got moving, starting slowly for the cockpit. Sure enough, a longsword stood leaning against the pilot’s chair. Keith picked it up and frowned, and ended up setting it down on the ground behind the chair before he settled into it. He drew his legs up as he reached for the ship transmitter and powered it on.

            “Attention, Voltron. Attention, Castle of Lions,” Keith murmured. “This is an SOS from Keith. I repeat, this is an SOS from Keith.”

            Keith took a shaky breath.

            “I’m still on Chincee, still in the Rodaga Belt. I’m…not doing so hot. I’m still sick…so far, we haven’t been able to find medicine. I…I _really_ don’t know how much longer I can do this.”

            Keith ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know whether or not I’ll get another chance to get a message out. Something was done to me on Planet Ven in the Bolza System. By my estimates, I’ve got less than a week left before some disease I got infected with kills me.”

            Keith put one foot on the floor and started swiveling the chair back and forth, slowly, some way to get his energy out.

            “I got into a fight, too,” he went on. “I’m injured. I’m alive…but I’m injured. I could’ve died. I…did I ever mention I’m here with Tiva? I found her in a prison, on Ruovi. She’s saved my life more than once since we broke out.”

            _I thought she left me. I broke down. I_ _’m not the same Red Paladin you lost._

            “I’d probably be dead if it wasn’t for her, so if you answer this distress signal, don’t leave without her. Even…even if I’m not here.”

            Another shaking breath.

            Keith shut his eyes.

            “I don’t know…I really don’t know what’s going to happen from this point forward. We don’t have enough fuel to leave this planet. I don’t think we have much longer before the Galra get to us. I don’t know if I’ll be able to contact you guys again. If you hear this, then I’m _sorry_. For _everything_. I’m sorry you had to look for me, I’m sorry for whatever turmoil I’ve put you all through…and Lance, if for some reason you’re hearing this…I wish we had more time. I’m sorry for all the suffering I’ve caused you.”

            Keith sniffled.

            _You can_ _’t. Not again. Not now. Don’t let this be their last memory of you._

            “This is an SOS,” Keith said, much softer. “This is an SOS for Team Voltron. I repeat, this is an SOS for Team Voltron. Over and out.”

            Keith waited a few seconds and then turned the transmitter off, and forced himself not to slam it back down on the dashboard. He wrapped his arms around his knees and buried his face.

* * *

            Another two days passed.

            Tiva still hadn’t found fuel.

            Keith’s condition only deteriorated.

            That afternoon, he sat outside in the light of whatever star was sustaining this planet, a blanket drawn tight about his shivering body. He’d coughed up blood that morning, and coughed up blood even now—his hand came away from his mouth spattered in red, and he only scrunched his body tighter.

            _Not very much longer,_ he thought. Maybe another day or two, max.

            He and Tiva had sent out one last distress signal, after the one he thought would be his concluding one. There was nothing special about it, no message he had to attach, and he made Tiva do it. He was in no shape to be speaking; his throat ached from his screaming and crying in the days before.

            “Oh fuck,” Tiva muttered from where she stood at the side of the ship, tinkering away to see if maybe she could find a different way to get it moving. Keith looked up, and then glanced in the direction she was looking, heart dropping, stomach churning.

            _I knew it._

            Keith didn’t know how many troops there were, just that there were a lot of them, both soldier and sentry alike, all with weapons. A smug-looking commander led the march, and ordered a charge about fifty yards from the ship. Tiva moved as soon as the commander yelled, urging Keith to get inside of the ship. Keith stood up on weak legs, Tiva at his side immediately, trying to pick him up to make the process go faster.

            “Come on, Keith,” she hissed. “If we can hide you somewhere, maybe the cargo hold, you can get out of this—”

            She cut herself off when Keith started shaking his head.

            “No use,” he whispered. “They’re after me. They know I’m here. They heard the distress signals.”

            No more running away. He’d done enough of it, and there was no way for him to get out of this one. He’d face death head-on, with two middle fingers raised if he had to. Tiva looked stricken, like she was on the verge of losing her shit right then and there, and threw her hands up.

            “Keith—”

            “I’m not running, and I’m not hiding,” Keith interrupted, and choked, and coughed up more blood, this time into the blanket covering his elbow. “Lotor wants me dead, and he finally has me right where he wants me. There’s nowhere left to go.”

            Keith turned toward the advancing soldiers and sentries, all converging on the ship, and shut his eyes just in time to be blown backwards, into Tiva, by something coming down from the sky behind him.

            He and Tiva hit the ground in a heap, Tiva absorbing most of the fall. He raised his head weakly, body on fire with pain that he had no tolerance left for, and that was the moment he knew he had to be dead.

            There was absolutely no way he was seeing the Yellow and Green Lions of Voltron.

            “Keith! Oh my God, _Keith!_ ”

            Keith whipped his head around just as a roar filled the air.

            There was the Black Lion, on its back haunches, ripping a new one to the entire _universe,_ and there was _Shiro,_ sprinting for him, Allura trailing hot in his wake. Shiro fell to his knees in the dirt beside Keith, as Tiva worked to get him in a lying-down position.

            “Keith,” Shiro said, propping Keith’s head in his lap, squeezing his hand so hard that Keith thought his fingers might break. “Look at me, bud. It’s me. I’m here. We got your distress signals. Ke—Keith, s-stay with me here— _fucking hell,_ Allura, we’ve gotta get him in a pod—”

            Keith wasn’t listening, exactly. His eyes drifted skyward, to where a white castle floated high above them, gleaming in the daylight.

            “ _Keith,_ ” Shiro said more insistently, “look at me, buddy. Can—Keith, can you hear me?”

            “You came,” Keith mumbled, vision swimming with four Shiros, all of them wearing concerned faces. “I thought—”

            “No,” Shiro whispered, in an attempt to shush him, “no, Keith. I’d never abandon you, alright? We never stopped looking.”

            Keith smiled dizzily, and Shiro cast a panicked look at Allura. She gave him a tight nod, and then took off at a dead heat for the Black Lion.

            “Tiva,” Shiro said, voice strained, “you’ve gotta help me with him. I-I can’t—”

            Keith didn’t hear the rest of whatever exchange was happening. A new voice entered his head, deep and rumbling.

            _“Do not write yourself off yet, Paladin.”_

            “Hey, Black,” Keith whispered. “Sorry I couldn’t even lead myself…always knew Shiro was the best Black Paladin…”

            _“Hang on, Paladin,”_ Black urged in his head, but her voice was already fading away, along with Keith’s sense of consciousness. He registered someone carrying him, the last thing he registered.

            He didn’t hear Shiro screaming his name. He didn’t feel himself get passed from Shiro’s arms to Allura’s and Tiva’s as Shiro threw himself into the pilot’s chair of the Black Lion and took off for the castle. He didn’t see Hunk or Pidge weeping when everyone reentered the castle, when Shiro sprinted for the med bay faster than he’d ever run in his life, even on Kerberos only two years ago.

            He didn’t hear it when the Black Paladin sat in front of a healing pod, in the middle of the castle’s night cycle, and absolutely lost it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had that scene with Shiro planned for a while now. Some variations had it where Keith was being actively attacked. He ended up being too sick for that to work out any sort of well.
> 
> ANYWAY, THAT HAPPENED.
> 
> So now, it's 1:30 in the morning and I have homework due tomorrow (aka _today_ ) that I didn't even start, so. Yeah. I also have no idea where I'm going with the next chapter, so it might be a while before the next update. But hey, three chapters in a week? I think I was pretty productive this Christmas break. 
> 
> See y'all in the next one!


	23. The One in Which Team Voltron Deals with the Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Voltron is a mess in the wake of the mission to Chincee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'ALL.
> 
> SORRY THIS TOOK OVER A MONTH TO GET OUT, I REWROTE THE BEGINNING LIKE 4 TIMES. (Although if I had spaced out the three chapters I posted over Christmas break, this would be right on time, probably _early_ so uhhh, anYWAY)
> 
> I cried writing this chapter. Just by the way. 
> 
> **For TRIGGER WARNING purposes, I want to say this chapter is intensely emotional, so be prepared. Other trigger warnings include poor coping mechanisms, perceived character death, self-loathing and social isolation (sort of? you'll understand this one when you get to it, and you'll know when, I really don't know how to word it, it might potentially be triggering so :P), and also the first line of the chapter. :)**

Chapter 23

            Keith’s death itself was quiet.

            He slipped away while Shiro carried him, tearing for the med bay. Neither he, nor Allura, nor Tiva noticed he’d passed on until Shiro suddenly gasped and stumbled, nearly dropping Keith, nearly falling to his knees. It was at that same moment Black roared, a deafening sound that rocked the entire castle. Realization struck the three of them at once, and Shiro regained his footing and ran faster. Allura and Tiva, too, upped their paces to keep up with him. By the time they reached the pod room, Pidge and Hunk and Coran were already gathered.

            They knew. Tiva saw the looks in their eyes, the tears running down the faces of the Yellow and Green Paladins, the way the advisor’s lip trembled.

            “C-Coran—Allura—please, h-he _can_ _’t_ —”

            He choked on each word, and the room fell into organized chaos. Coran and Allura set upon Keith at once, while Shiro’s cool mask shattered. He barked orders for Pidge, Hunk, and Tiva to get back and stay back. There was no cleaning up of Keith’s injuries, no stripping him of his flight suit and getting him into the neat white pod suit. Shiro and Allura got him upright into a pod, while Coran set to work at hooking the pod up to Keith’s system, getting readings, making adjustments to his treatment as necessary.

            Tiva had never seen this process before, but it shouldn’t have taken more than ten minutes. She could gather that much from the concerned lines deepening on the faces of the two youngest Paladins in the room, as time wore on, and Shiro, Allura, and Coran appeared no closer to wrapping up and announcing that everything was just a scare, that Keith would be fine in no time at all.

            Ten minutes became fifteen, and then twenty, and Allura whispered something to Shiro, who trembled from head to toe. He turned to the other Paladins, much more remorseful than he appeared twenty minutes ago. He approached them slowly; Tiva crossed her arms and watched, mouth in a tight line, as he whispered to them to go off elsewhere—this would take a while. He only acknowledged Tiva afterward, when Pidge sniffled, and Hunk took her out of the room, suppressing his own tears. Shiro acknowledged Tiva with a mere tip of the chin, a silent allowance of choice: stay and observe, or go somewhere else and wait.

            Tiva didn’t know where else to go, and remained away from the others, against a wall, silently assessing.

            With Pidge and Hunk gone, the Shiro unraveled. At this point, there was little else he could do. A year on this ship wasn’t enough time to learn how to work the cryopods, and the duty fell to Coran and Allura. Coran typed away at a computer screen and the side of the pod simultaneously, while Allura pressed her hands to the glass of the pod, shut her eyes, and focused.

            Beside her, Shiro wept openly.

            Tiva didn’t know the Paladins intimately. To see the Black Paladin, who’d she assumed to be a calm presence in the face of turmoil, break down, struck her as unsettlingly strange. Even stranger was that she hadn’t been asked to leave, even as the team was in the midst of what she could only describe as a family affair. It felt wrong, to be watching their team leader lose it, and Tiva decided then that she would’ve preferred if she’d never seen this at all.

            Still, she didn’t leave.

            She had information on Keith and his experiences that the others didn’t, and if she was needed, she couldn’t afford to be away. Not when it seemed that Coran’s typing was becoming more frantic by the minute, and Allura looked more and more strained, and Shiro’s sobs turned to broken gasps.

            Beyond the glass, Keith remained motionless.

* * *

            Hunk hadn’t asked to get shot into space.

            He hadn’t asked to become a Paladin of Voltron.

            He was perfectly content on Earth, studying engineering at the Garrison, already having accepted the fact that at one point or another, Lance’s antics would get them kicked out, or Hunk would grow so sick of Iverson he’d up and quit himself, and pursue his true dream of opening a restaurant.

            But he hadn’t backed down when this had become his reality. He’d taken up the mantle of Yellow Paladin, Left Leg of Voltron, with minimal complaining. He knew the risks of the job from the moment he stopped Galra ships from destroying Blue and killing Lance on their first day on the job. It was that mission, that very first mission, that cemented the gravity of the situation in Hunk’s mind.

            _Defenders of the Universe_ or not, the Paladins were still teenagers. Still human. Still mortal.

            And yet somehow, even with that thought planted firmly, even with the frequent close calls as of late, Hunk hadn’t been prepared for this.

            He and Pidge never made it to either of their rooms before Pidge’s knees buckled, and Hunk caught her before she could hurt herself. She took in that first sharp gasp, and Hunk knew it was over. There was no keeping her stable, no getting her to her room so she could cry in peace.

            The pair of them ended up on the ground, Pidge clinging to Hunk under the dim lights of the castle’s sleep cycle. She scream-cried, anguished sounds echoing in the empty halls around them. Hunk’s chest tightened, and for a moment, he struggled to breathe. His own sobs lodged in his throat and refused to escape or dissipate, painfully stuck. Silent tears rolled down his face as he took in shuddering, shallow breaths.

            Against him, Pidge shivered, tiny and frail. If for no other reason than to be a pillar of strength for her, Hunk blinked his tears away, tried again and again to swallow the lump in his throat.

            “He—he—Hunk, he— _oh my God,_ he’s—”

            Pidge stammered, caught on the same few first words, unable to finish her thought. She choked and gasped and went into a coughing fit, and then succumbed to a fresh round of hysterics.

            Hunk didn’t want to admit it, but he knew just as well as she did.

            He felt something snap inside of him, some frayed thread that couldn’t hold out any longer. And if it had hurt him, the way it cleaved through his chest, burning with the heat of the sun, then Hunk had no idea what Shiro had to be feeling, linked to Keith through not only the Voltron bond, but the shared bond to the Black Lion.

            “He’ll—he’ll be okay,” Hunk murmured, straining to keep his voice even.

            Maybe that was the point in being the Yellow Paladin: to be the last light when every other one had gone out. Some part of Hunk not only refused to believe that their Red Paladin was gone, but merely found it _impossible._ Not to say that _death_ was impossible, but something deep-seated within him whispered to hang on, whispered to remain optimistic—this wasn’t it.

            Maybe it was Yellow, or the collective voice of all of the Lions. They always knew more than the Paladins did.

            “ _How?!_ ” Pidge shrieked, drawing back long enough to glare at Hunk. “He’s _fucking dead!_ He—you _felt it!_ He’s _gone!_ ”

            How did Hunk explain the feeling he had? Pidge wasn’t _wrong_ —the Lions were linked to the Paladins through their quintessence, and for one reason or another, Keith’s connection to the team had severed. By all accounts, it should’ve meant death. It _did_ mean death.

            “I have a feeling,” Hunk whispered, and pulled Pidge back into him, as she broke again, her moment of strength fleeting, disappearing. “Remember how you felt when you found Green for the first time? That pull? That feeling you couldn’t explain?”

            He remembered finding Yellow, feeling the connection to his Lion, the connection to the earth. Felt that he himself could cause an earthquake, could make the ground tremble beneath his feet at just a simple command, on the precipice of something much greater than himself, much greater than one Lion or even the one planet.

            “It’s like that,” Hunk added. “Something’s telling me to hold on.”

             If anyone had told Hunk a few years ago that he’d be holding out hope for the survival of the Galaxy Garrison’s prodigy fighter pilot, with nothing more than the faint utterings of a sentient robot Lion to go off of, he might’ve laughed in their face. If anyone told him he’d be doing so in the middle of a hallway, on a flying castle in _space,_ he would’ve walked away.

            Now?

            “I’m holding on,” Hunk said, arms tightening around Pidge. “You need to hold on, too.”

* * *

            Shiro’s chest lit with a burning pain at the same time Black had let loose her roar, and it hadn’t let up since.

            He knew what the pain was the first time—all of them knew. It became subdued, and once threatened to flicker out entirely, and at that point, nearly half an hour had passed since it began, and Shiro thought that perhaps the pain was due to his own heartache. It seemed plausible enough—it hurt to breathe, especially after his breakdown in front of Keith’s pod.

            It wasn’t until now, the fire burning hot with a newfound vigor, that he understood.

            Allura slumped back into Shiro’s waiting arms, hands finally dropping away from the pod glass. Sweat rolled down her forehead and the sides of her face, matting the strands of hair that had come loose during the battle and the ensuing chaos. Coran, meanwhile, took a step away from the computers he’d been so diligently working at, wringing his hands, tentative relief in his expression. He turned toward Shiro and gave him a tight-lipped, sympathetic smile, and didn’t make a remark about the wetness on his cheeks.

            “Well,” Coran said, voice a few octaves too high for comfort, “he’s going to survive.”

            Coran launched into an explanation, as gently as he could, about what had happened, and what would happen from here on out. Keith was poisoned, first and foremost. The poison likely originated in the lab on Ven. A medication administered to him on Ruovi couldn’t fully cure him, with his conflicting heritages, and created a dependence on it to survive, one that would take time for the pod to draw out of him while simultaneously administering a cure tailored to his biology, specifically.

            Drawing out the poison and getting Keith off of the medicine were the first steps. The pod would do its best to heal his other injuries at the same time, but even in a pod, the body could only take so much strain. It would take time for him to come out as good as new—two weeks, at the earliest. Barring unforeseen complications.

            “But he was dead, wasn’t he?”

            Shiro’s voice was hoarse.

            “We all—I—he was _gone_. I felt it.”

            Coran opened and shut his mouth, and settled his gaze on Allura, who tried to get back on both feet. Shiro helped her, a steady hand on her elbow, eyes shining with worry.

            “He…he _was_ dead, yes. What you felt was his quintessence fading, and his links with the Lions and Voltron fading away, as well. If we had gotten to him any later, we likely would have lost him for good, but I was able to get through to him. I latched onto my connection with him through my connections with Black and with Red. Of course…going directly through Red would have been much easier, but as Black was the closest, and more aware of the situation…”

            Allura stole a glance at the pod and frowned.

            Keith’s hair was frozen, a stormy halo around his face. He should’ve looked at peace, like he was no more than sleeping, but the pain in his expression was clear.

            “I was able to get into his mindscape,” Allura went on, voice softer. “I saw things…things I wish I hadn’t. It appears he’s been through much more than he’s let on in his distress signals. When he comes out of the pod, we need to be ready. I don’t know how he’s going to react. It appears that before he met up with Tiva…he was on his own, and suffered for it.”

            She opened her mouth, like she was going to elaborate, and then decided against it. Instead, she peered at Tiva, who stood against the wall with her arms crossed. She pushed away from the wall when she caught Allura’s gaze, and strode slowly forward.

            “Did he tell you?” Allura asked.

            Tiva nodded, eyes drifting toward Keith. “I don’t know what’s my place to explain, or what’s better left to him. But he was already pretty beat up when he and I teamed up.”

            “I’ll take the fall if he gets angry,” Shiro said, “but I need to know. What happened to him?”

            Tiva took in his stricken face, his mussed hair, the glassy look in his eyes. She glanced at the door, and then back at the group before her. “I feel it’s better to explain to the whole team at once.”

            Allura, Coran, and Shiro all looked at each other, silent agreement passing in their gazes, and Coran quietly excused himself to go hunt down Pidge and Hunk.

            “There is one thing,” Tiva said quietly, after a few minutes had passed, and Coran hadn’t returned, “that I feel like the others don’t necessarily need to know.”

            Shiro raised his eyebrows, muscles drawing tight with apprehension. “And that would be?”

            “I watched him break down,” Tiva answered, and Shiro’s face whitened.

            Allura reached for his hands and gripped them, tightly, imploring Tiva to explain further. Her voice wasn’t panicked, as though she was completely clueless on the situation and was just as desperate to know as Shiro. It was more like she was searching for confirmation, of things seen that could’ve been real, or could’ve been some kind of fever dream.

            “I was out getting supplies,” Tiva said. “He was asleep when I left, still recovering from a fight, and when I came back, he was out of his mind. Screaming, crying, all scrunched up in a ball on his cot. It didn’t take me very long to figure out what was going on.”

            _“You came. I thought—”_

_“No, no, Keith. I’d never abandon you, alright? We never stopped looking.”_

            Shiro’s mouth opened and closed, at a loss for the right words. Finally, he turned to Allura. “Did…did you see that, while you were in his head?”

            “I…not _exactly_ , but…yes, to a certain degree,” Allura answered, pursing her lips. “His mind…everyone’s mindscape is unique. It can change at will. _His_ was shrouded in darkness. I could only catch snippets of things, but…the things I _did_ see…”

            She didn’t get the chance to explain further. Coran reentered the room, Pidge and Hunk in tow. Neither of them had changed out of their Paladin suits, too full of grief to even consider it. Pidge rubbed at her eyes, rubbed at the tear tracks on her face. Hunk appeared better, if only slightly. He had a steady, guiding hand on Pidge’s shoulder, as they came to stand alongside Shiro and Allura.

            “So,” Tiva said, looking between the group of them, “Keith…told me the story of what happened to him, before we met up. Shiro’s given me the okay to explain.”

            And she did. The Paladins listened carefully, to the tale of Keith’s survival up to being imprisoned on Ruovi—from his breakout on Ven, to finding Luce, to the betrayal, to being kept in the lab, to escaping, to being taken prisoner and then getting shot down and taken as a prisoner again.

            “What happened after that?” Pidge asked. “How did you guys end up on Chincee? What happened to Keith there?”

            Her voice wobbled as she spoke, and Hunk squeezed her shoulder. Tiva looked at the pair of them, and then at Shiro and Allura, and stole a glance at Coran, who listened while he pretended to busy himself with monitoring Keith’s vitals.

            “Keith got taken in for questioning,” Tiva started. “He didn’t tell me much about what happened, just that he was forced to take some kind of medicine, and was told that if he didn’t, whatever he got infected with on Ven would kill him in a week. When he escaped from questioning, he basically destroyed the prison. We staged a prison break, he set off explosives, we stole a ship, and we got out of there.”

            She went on, explaining how they ran out of medicine, how Keith’s condition deteriorated, how they went to go scout for supplies, and Keith ended up getting beaten in a street fight.

            She omitted Keith’s breakdown, cutting her eyes once to Shiro and Allura, and they seemed to understand.

            She omitted the part where Keith had been prepared to surrender when the Galra found them. If it wasn’t her place to really be telling this story at _all_ , then it _really_ wasn’t her place to put his hopelessness out in the open.

            Plus, she didn’t think the others needed that on top of their grief. They needed time for coping before they could get hit with another bombshell.

* * *

            Shiro didn’t sleep much over the course of the next few nights. He got what snatches of rest he could during the castle’s day cycle, when he knew others would be up to monitor Keith’s pod, but at night, Shiro sat in front of it, watching Keith’s vitals. It was on maybe his fourth night of sitting in front of the pod that the door opened, spilling in pale light from the hallway. Shiro whipped around, GalraTech hand flaring to life almost immediately.

            From the doorway, Hunk blinked at him.

            “You know,” Hunk started, entering the room slowly, as Shiro lowered his arm, face burning, “it’s not really nice to point that thing at your teammates. But I’ll let this one slide.”

            “Sorry,” Shiro muttered, and dragged his other hand through his hair.

            “It’s alright, dude, I get it,” Hunk said.

            He came to Shiro’s side and sat down. The whole time, Shiro watched, and Hunk noted the skittish look to his eyes, the tension in his muscles.

            “Okay, so,” Hunk started, “I _know_ you’re scared for him. We’re all scared for him. But he’s not gonna get better any faster if you just sit here. You’re our leader, dude. You have to know that better than anyone.”

            Hunk pretended to study Keith’s pod, although _pretending_ wasn’t very difficult, and became actually examining him, and the tattered mess of his suit, and the numerous injuries littering the Red Paladin. Next to him, Shiro sighed deeply, in and out through his nose.

            “I know,” Shiro said. “I just—”

            “You feel guilty, you feel responsible, you feel like you could’ve prevented this, you should’ve done things differently,” Hunk interrupted.

            Shiro turned toward Hunk, eyebrows raised.

            “You’ve gotta rest, dude,” Hunk said. “You remember when this all started, and you and Allura tried to get me and Pidge to sleep? Now _you_ need to sleep. Coran said himself, Keith’s gonna be okay. You’ve gotta trust Coran and trust the pod. Yeah, trusting tech is scary, because it could malfunction, just like it did that one time, and Alfor’s AI started—okay, you know what? Never mind. My point? Go to bed. _Rest._ Keith’s gonna be fine. And once he’s outta that pod, we’re gonna rescue Lance.”

            Shiro’s eyebrows knit, and his gaze fell away from Hunk as he brought up the Blue Paladin, still trapped at Central Command.

            “I’m sorry,” Shiro said. “I can’t shut down. I’m…I’m not the only one grieving. After all…you and Lance are close, aren’t you?”

            Hunk’s face turned wistful. A grim smile tugged at the edges of his mouth, one that morphed into a frown as he dropped his eyes to the ground. “Yeah.”

            “How did you and Lance meet?” Shiro asked, placing a hand on Hunk’s back.

            Maybe it was because he was too distraught to think about Keith anymore, or maybe it was because he hadn’t given enough thought to Lance’s situation in the flurry of chaos that’d been the past few days, or maybe just because he needed to get Hunk’s mind on something positive, instead of something as negative as everything else around them. Either way, Shiro didn’t need to see another one of his teammates—one of his own _kids_ —in pain.

            The corners of Hunk’s mouth lifted again. “We were in the same classes at the Garrison. We were roommates, actually. I had no idea what I was in for. I swear, Lance was going to get us kicked out of there. But I went with him anyway, no matter what he did. He always had a plan. He had the whole place mapped, he ended up having the night guard rotations down to a T…all so we could sneak out and meet girls in the town without getting caught.”

            “Just girls?” Shiro asked.

            Hunk nodded, smile widening fondly. “Yeah, he uh…he had what he called his ‘bi crisis’ while we were on a mission, actually. He came to me in the middle of the mission and started yelling. And then he realized that his whole ‘rivalry’ with Keith was just a crush he was overcompensating for. It was funny to watch, if I’m being honest.”

            Hunk’s smile faded again. “Man, I miss him.”

            He switched his gaze to Shiro, and cocked his head slightly. “So what about you and Keith? You say he’s basically your brother but like…how did that happen?”

            _Oh jeez._

            Thinking back that far would be a nostalgia trip. Things were a lot simpler when all Shiro had to worry about was getting to Kerberos with Matt and Sam and keeping Keith in check. Not fighting a war. Not caring for an entire team.

            “It wasn’t my decision,” Shiro said. “I…I was one of the top pilots in the Garrison for my age group. I also had the cleanest record, which was why Iverson approached me. He and the other officials decided that Keith had too much potential to go to waste. Someone had to rein him in. They chose me.”

            Hunk’s eyes widened. “This whole time—”

            “You thought I approached Keith on my own,” Shiro said. “No, not really. I noticed him—most of us did. But no one ever tried to talk to him.”

            “I remember that,” Hunk said. “He was pretty standoffish.”

            Shiro nodded. “He was.”

            Shiro’s eyes drifted back to Keith’s pod. He could picture Keith, several years ago. Slightly smaller, in a disheveled orange Garrison uniform, eyes narrowed, shoulders drawn, head down.

            “Nobody knew what he’d gone through. Everyone saw him and decided they needed to keep away. I mean…that’s what Keith was going for. I just wish it hadn’t worked,” Shiro said. “Even Matt said it was a bad idea, and Matt had some of the worst ideas on the planet.”

* * *

             _“Kogane? Like_ Keith _Kogane?_ _”_

            _Matt hurried down the hall after Shiro, precariously balancing a stack of papers._

_“Yes,” Shiro answered. “I don’t see what the big deal is.”_

_“Wha—you don’t—are you for real?” Matt sputtered. “I’ve seen the kid carrying a knife. I’ve never seen another knife like it, and I’m_ convinced _he stole it. And he probably uses it to shank people in allies. People like_ you. _You need to tell Iverson you_ _’re not doing it!”_

_Shiro ignored the strange looks he and Matt were earning from the other cadets they passed in the hall, nodding to the few who had the decency to raise their hand in greeting and pretend they didn_ _’t hear Matt yelling._

_“Matt,” Shiro said, “I’m an adult. I know what I’m doing.”_

_“You say that now,” Matt responded sharply. “I don’t wanna hear you complaining later on when you realize that this kid’s beyond help.”_

_That phrase was tossed around a lot in the meeting Shiro_ _’d been called into yesterday morning, about some cadet a couple age brackets below Shiro’s. A fairly new, gifted pilot with a rebellious streak. Caught breaking into various areas on the Garrison property, talking back to instructors, being generally unpleasant to anyone who approached him._

_According to Iverson, he had the makings of something great, if he could just get his attitude in check._

_“And that’s where you come in,” Iverson had explained to Shiro, or as Matt called him, Mr. Squeaky Clean Pilot Man. “Get in there. Get him under control.”_

_Shiro didn_ _’t let Iverson know that those words were a little harsh for dealing with a kid—he just accepted his job and left without another word._

_Today was the day he was supposed to meet up with Keith, introduce himself, start getting to know him, the whole nine yards. He absolutely did not need Matt chattering about how this was awful, and how he shouldn_ _’t have gone through with it._

_“Nobody’s beyond help,” Shiro said._

_“Does he even_ want _help?_ _” Matt countered._

_Shiro shrugged, stopping outside of the door to Keith_ _’s dorm. As far as he knew, Keith had been assigned a single. Singles weren’t rarities, exactly. Just uncommon. Most people preferred to bunk with one or two people, to study and get used to life at the Garrison. Someone to share the experience with._

_“He’s going to get it either way,” Shiro said. “I’ll be back at the dorm soon.”_

_Matt rolled his eyes._ _“Yep. If you don’t get stabbed.”_

_“Matt—”_

_“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ll see you later.”_

_Matt gave Shiro a lazy two-finger salute and hefted his stack of papers, sauntering down the hall. Shiro waited until Matt was completely gone. In the meantime, he strained to hear any noise coming from inside of Keith_ _’s room, but got nothing. He frowned and knocked. Twice. Three times._

_He lifted his fist for a fourth knock when the door opened._

_Shiro looked down at the cadet before him. The kid had to be in his early teens, dark hair obscuring half of his face. He narrowed his eyes at Shiro._

_“Are you the one that’s supposed to ‘fix me,’ or whatever?”_

_Shiro raised his eyebrows._ Fix him? _What the hell had they already told him?_

_“I wouldn’t say that,” Shiro said, and stuck out his hand. “I’m Takashi Shirogane.”_

_“Yeah, I’ve heard of you,” Keith said, crossing his arms pointedly. Shiro lowered his hand. “You’re the best fighter pilot in the Garrison. Everyone talks about you.”_

Oh.

_“Oh,” Shiro said, and rubbed the back of his neck._

_By now, he could hear the din of students in the background, stopping to observe the legend standing in the middle of the dorm hall, talking to the loner kid. A few students were whispering—as for what they were saying, Shiro couldn_ _’t hear._

_“Well,” Shiro said, “I’m sure people talk about you, too.”_

_Immediately, he winced. Wrong choice of words._

_“Yeah,” Keith said with a light snort. “I’m sure they do. I’ve heard some things.”_

_The bitter smile on Keith_ _’s face dropped, along with his voice. “Not just from students.”_

_Shiro needed to get a grip on this conversation,_ fast.

_“Why don’t you walk with me?” Shiro asked. “Walking is good for you, ah…”_

_Shiro paused, and waved his hand in a small circle. Keith sighed in defeat and let his arms drop to his sides, stepping out of his room and shutting his door behind him._

_“Keith,” he answered. “Keith Kogane.”_

* * *

            “It took him a long time to fully open up to me,” Shiro said. “After he did…I couldn’t help but want to protect him. And now…”

            “I get it,” Hunk said softly. “But now we’ve gotta keep pushing on.”

            Hunk stood up, and then offered a hand to help Shiro up. Shiro took it, and together, the two of them started out of the pod room.

            “We’ve got plans set up for tomorrow that we need you to be rested for,” Hunk began. “Y’wanna hear them?”

            Shiro rubbed at his eyes and yawned. “Sure.”

            Shiro listened as Hunk explained the agenda—get into contact with Mirak for the first time in a while, start calling in allies, get back on the training deck. A whole list of things to do to prepare for when Keith came out of his pod. After Keith was out, they’d be headed straight to Central Command. No warning, just straight siege.

            “We don’t stop until we’ve got Lance,” Hunk said.

            “And what about Lotor?” Shiro asked.

            Hunk’s gaze darkened as they walked along, drawing nearer to where the hallways branched out. Hunk’s room was down one, and Shiro’s was in the opposite direction.

            “Allura said if we can get close enough to assassinate him, we take the shot, but our biggest priority is getting Lance to safety. Personally, I think we make assassinating Lotor a bigger part of the mission.”

            Shiro almost stopped walking, and forced himself to keep going. Hunk sounded downright murderous and remorseless.

            “He took my best friend,” Hunk said. “He’s been there for what, a month? More than a month? He was freaking out about Lotor after being on his ship for _two days._ I…I don’t want to know what he’s been through in a _month._ The transmissions and broadcasts have been bad enough…and we can’t even go to him until Keith’s out of the pod.”

            That had been made explicitly clear. The team needed all the help they could get to rescue Lance, castle’s firepower included. They couldn’t run the risk of the castle getting destroyed or infiltrated in the mission to Central Command. If that happened, there was no telling what would happen to Keith, defenseless and left to the pod’s mercy.

            That meant another two weeks at minimum that Lance would remain at Central Command.

            Another two weeks, minimum, without contact, unless Mirak could find a way to get him away from Lotor.

            “Lance is going to pay for this,” Hunk said, “and I intend to have Lotor make up the debt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhhh did you guys see a major character death tag on here anywhere? I didn't.
> 
> Shoutout to my best friend [Bea](http://archiveofourown.org/users/periphvna) for helping me come up with the section with Shiro and Matt, about how Shiro and Keith met and stuff. 
> 
> Anyway I _could_ tell you who the next chapter is about, but I won't. ;) See you in the next one!
> 
> Until then, some vld fanfics I've written between updates:  
>  **[squad up](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12199533/chapters/27702090)** : a klance-centric and squad-centric chatfic, currently up to chapter 96.  
>  **[offstage, unscripted](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13297263)** : a klance oneshot set during chapter 60 of squad up. play rehearsal gets interrupted in one of the worst ways possible.  
>  **[almost taken (not now, not ever)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13339704)** : fic request for instagram user kylienelson11: soft + klance. keith reflects on how far he and lance have come and how they've gotten there.  
>  **[covenant](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13389897)** : fic request for instagram user agreekgeek: introduction + platonic kidge. they'd protect each other like siblings, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.  
>  **[so two paladins get stuck on a compromised ship](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13531473)** : fic request for [nerdypants](http://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdypants): cryopod malfunction. lance has a broken arm and shiro has a concussion, and they're sentenced to bed rest when the castle gets infiltrated.
> 
> Bye!


	24. The One in Which New Hands Get Dealt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance rapidly loses sight of himself and his goals, while Lotor makes headway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you ever realize you fucked up and you really can't come back from it
> 
> >;)
> 
>  
> 
> **TRIGGER WARNINGS for a panic/anxiety attack, self-hatred, gaslighting, and warped self-perceptions, mostly in the beginning and end sections.**

Chapter 24

            He’d been doing well. His nightmares about Keith had been steadily decreasing.

            After the incident on the training deck, they came back in full force, and on the night Lance woke up with his chest on fire, he almost thought it was just another bad dream. But the pain didn’t subside after a few solid minutes of steady breathing like it normally would’ve. Lance, left alone in his room after insisting to Lotor that he needed time alone to readjust after seeing Keith’s face in such close proximity, regretted the request of solitude now.

            He needed someone to ground him and keep him from freaking out, but there was no one. When it dawned on Lance what this pain was—when he realized the steady banging from somewhere else in Central Command was likely _Red,_ trying to break free of his hangar—the panic set in. It wasn’t a steady, cold drip. No slow build—not this time. It was a deluge, slamming into him all at once, as the burning in his chest wavered, like a sputtering candle.

            He’d told himself over and over again that if Keith died, he was certain he’d feel it, through the Voltron connection, through his shared connection with Red. That was the way he held onto the hope that Keith was out there somewhere, _surviving,_ a testament to the unbreakable will that Lance loved.

            “Please,” Lance hissed, shaking hands clawing his chest, as though he could reach through skin and bone and tear out the pain. “ _Please,_ Red, d-don’t—he’s not— _Red, please_ —”

            He should’ve been able to hear something from the Lions. Anything. A _thought_. Even just _roaring_ would’ve been nice, but Red didn’t answer him, and Blue never volunteered in his place. Elsewhere aboard the Command Center, the banging persisted, about as erratic as Lance’s heartbeat.

            _He can_ _’t be gone, he can’t. There’s no way._

Tears spilled down Lance’s cheeks, two rushing rivers. He struggled to breathe—he hyperventilated, and soon started choking as his throat ran dry. He hunched over, burying his face in his pillow in a weak attempt to stifle his cries.

            His chest felt as though it were being torn apart, an agonizing sensation that kept the sobs coming, especially as Red and Blue went on ignoring him, and the fire burned hotter.

            “I’m sorry,” Lance whimpered between sobs. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry— _Keith, I_ _’m so sorry,_ I didn’t mean for this to happen—”

            Lance’s mind flooded with every scenario he could think of, scenarios that all ended up with Keith dead. At the hand of a Galra soldier. By a random civilian of a planet he’d run into trouble on. By one of Lotor’s commanders. Those and so many more, playing relentlessly in his head, and each time, Lance watched the life in Keith’s eyes wink out. Each death was another punch to the gut, another reminder that it was _Lance_ who wanted soldiers sent after Keith, _Lance_ who egged Lotor into pursuing him.

            _“Your fault. This. All of this. If you’d just fucking_ stayed away _, none of this would_ _’ve_ happened! _”_

 _No, no, I was wrong,_ Lance wanted to scream, as the tears came faster now, as the expression on the sim’s face resurfaced, and the sim became Keith, the _real_ Keith. They were no longer on the simulated training deck—they were in Blue’s cockpit, and Lance’s hand was around Keith’s throat, bashing his skull against the wall, and Keith refused to fight back.

            _I_ _’ve done nothing but hurt you._

            Training deck—the real one, not the simulation. Lance was waking up in Hunk’s arms to Hunk with a black eye, and Pidge holding her side. He was emerging from a pod to a distant Keith, to a Keith one poke from shattering, to a Keith with a black eye and trust issues thrown back in his face.

            To a Keith he didn’t deserve.

            _This is all my fault._

            How many times had he landed Keith in hot water all with his _ridiculous showboating?_ All with his ploy to pretend to love Lotor? How many times had a facade designed to keep Keith _safe_ and keep Lotor _distracted_ and _not_ focused on finding Keith backfired?

            _Too many times,_ Lance thought, knife twisting, hands shaking. And this was a wrong he couldn’t right.

            This hadn’t been a prank he was pulling on his mother. This hadn’t been some movie he was starring in. This hadn’t been a science grade he was gambling with. This wasn’t a _game,_ and he fucking played it like one. Keith’s life had been at stake—and Lance played a losing hand.

            Left with his thoughts only, no comfort from Red or Blue to be found, Lance sobbed himself dry, and somewhere along the way, the fire gave one last searing blast, and then burned out entirely.

* * *

            A movement of perceived victory came crashing down around Lotor in the middle of a solo strategy session.

            Lotor’s hands hovered in the air, where holographic projections of ships hummed, glowing purple, as realization settled upon him.

            His victorious streak began after Jer— _Lance,_ Jeremy never existed, except in Lotor’s dead hopes and dreams—broke down on the training deck, and requested more time to himself to _cope_ , after killing the Red Paladin himself. Lance had explained it as being too shaken after seeing an enemy’s face in such close proximity, especially an enemy with whom he had a complicated history. Lotor knew better, now. Knew that Lance really needed space to comprehend that he’d just killed someone wearing his true love’s— _ugh, disgusting_ —face.

            Only several quintants later, Lotor’s troops had finally tracked down the Red Paladin, through a chain of distress signals. The signals led to a planet in some unmemorable belt, where the Red Paladin was apparently dying. The Red Paladin had gotten away, rescued at the last minute by Team Voltron, but Lotor hadn’t had time to be angry over it. It was then that the Red Lion suddenly went berserk, attempting to break out of its hangar.

            Lotor reviewed reports from his soldiers and commander on that mission, and found the detail he needed: the Red Paladin was last seen being carried frantically onto the Black Lion, looking deader than ever— _which,_ Lotor remembered musing shortly before celebrating, was quite telling of someone who he generally perceived as an uncontainable firecracker. When Lotor came to Lance’s room later on that day, he requested more time alone, voice sounding much hoarser than usual.

            Lotor was many things, but he wasn’t oblivious.

            Not anymore.

            He took the next several quintants to focus on strategy, now that Team Voltron would be too occupied with mourning their fallen Red Paladin to make any moves. At the time, it was all so perfect. Team Voltron would be out of commission. The biggest thorn in Lotor’s side was finally, _finally_ gone. The Red Lion had calmed, and was now probably dysfunctional, without someone to fill the void left behind by the Red Paladin. And Lance?

            His biggest motivator had been eliminated.

            He was, essentially, broken.

            Lotor couldn’t recall a time when Lance had asked to be left alone in his room for more than a day or two at a time. When he’d first arrived here, he’d begun _begging_ to be let out, to roam the ship and _do_ something. Lotor’s only explanation was that Lance’s current mental state was fragile, and that he simply needed more time to come up with a plan to…hmm. _What,_ exactly, Lance’s next move would be was lost on Lotor. It didn’t _matter,_ at the moment.

            Especially not now, when Lotor was realizing that there was no way the Red Paladin was _truly_ gone.

            If he was gone, wouldn’t the Paladins have been working overtime to get the Blue One home, before the same fate could befall him? Or at least sent a transmission berating Lotor for killing the Red Paladin, a transmission to swear vengeance in his name? By all accounts, Central Command should’ve been suffering an attack right _now_.

            Of course, Lotor couldn’t be _certain._ Maybe he was right, maybe they _were_ too damaged to make a move. But not one transmission?

            And would they really leave behind their Blue Paladin?

            “Reset simulation,” Lotor said, and at once, the ships and planets before him blinked out, reforming in a box on the long table in the center of the room. Lotor approached the box scanned over the holograms, each one awaiting placement. Eyes narrowing, he directed one piece in particular to the center of the room.

            The Castle of Lions hovered a few feet in front of Lotor’s face. He studied it, the thought to move other ships into place gone from his mind. Instead, he pictured the inside of the castle, pictured the Paladins scrambling to save the Red One, forging plans to lay low and prepare to strike when the time is right. Wasn’t that always what they sought to do? Each plan by the Paladins was covert, whether by having two of their own sneak around in air ducts, or by having them lie in wait in a forest and attack when their targets were too distracted to pay attention, or sneaking aboard a ship under the pretense of an alliance.

            An obvious detail, overlooked for too long.

            _No more hiding from me._

            Lotor closed the simulation, castleship resetting in the box before each hologram fizzled out. For a moment, he stood in the empty silence of the room, listening to the hum of the lights overhead, of the distant engines keeping Central Command going. If he’d been overlooking the actions of a team he’d been so focused on, what else was he missing aboard his _own command center?_

            _Not now,_ Lotor mentally chided himself, _but soon._

            For _now,_ he had a mission to order.

            He strode out of the room and headed for the bridge. He turned down a hallway lined with different control rooms, most of which should’ve been empty. This was where most of his hackers were supposed to work, but as he’d gotten rid of a large chunk of them, and hadn’t gotten around to replacing them, well…the command center was just a tad light on personnel.

            That was why Lotor was surprised when he came upon a door and could hear voices from the other side of it—one hushed, several louder, like they weren’t aware they needed to be quiet. Slightly fuzzy, as though they weren’t on the command center at all.

            Lotor paused outside of the door and pressed his ear against it, eyes narrowing.

            “…haven’t been able to get to him. He’s either with Lotor or in his room, and Lotor’s the only one who’s got access to it. Something happened the other day, though. I haven’t seen him around the base much—”

            _“He’s alive though, right?”_

            Lotor’s eyebrows shot up.

            That was, unmistakably, the voice of the Yellow Paladin.

            “Yes,” the voice on the other side of the door said. “He’s alive, but I haven’t been able to talk to him.”

            _“Does he know Keith’s alive?”_

            It sounded like the Green One this time, that small one, the one who’d cost Lotor precious time on the battlefield before, with their obnoxious little rope-bayard. Lotor scowled at the sound of their voice, but his scowl faded as he listened to the answer given.

            “I don’t know. He could very well think Keith is dead.”

            Well, _clearly,_ he should’ve.

            _“If he felt it through the Voltron bond, then yes, he may,”_ another voice agreed.

            Lotor raised his eyebrows at the sound of Princess Allura, but even more so at her words. _Voltron bond?_ It didn’t _seem_ that far-fetched, not when Lotor knew that some sort of mental link-up was _required_ to form that robotic pest. He’d just never heard of such a thing existing so strongly when they weren’t in their Lions, weren’t fighting a battle—just merely going about their days.

            Then again, his father never told him much. Kept him away from most of the useful knowledge he possessed.

            Resentment for his deceased predecessor surged up in Lotor’s chest, accompanied by hatred for Haggar. The both of them, underestimating him, undermining his every move, doubting his skill, and look where he was now. Two Lions in his possession, one Paladin, two bayards, two suits of armor…and another Paladin would be dead soon enough, along with yet another traitor.

            _“If he felt it through the Voltron bond, don’t you think he would’ve felt Keith come back?”_ the Green One spoke up.

            Oh no. Lotor couldn’t have that—if the Blue Paladin knew the Red Paladin was still alive, then he was spending all that time in his room doing nothing but brainstorming his way out. Even if he believed the Red Paladin _was_ dead, what was to say that he wasn’t still planning an escape? The gravity of the situation dawned on Lotor in that moment, the realization that Lance’s treason was more dangerous than he first believed.

            _He could_ _’ve killed you, but he hasn’t,_ Lotor reminded himself.

            Would the Red Paladin’s supposed death change that? And was Lotor _really_ worrying about this, now of all times? Because of some officer he’d happened upon? He’d be going about his day normally if he never stumbled upon this room—

            _People act normal until they learn they_ _’re sick. If they carried on normally, a treatable disease would kill them._

            _“Not necessarily,”_ Allura replied. _“Do you know if he’s been able to connect to Red or Blue?”_

            Connect to the Red Lion?

            As far as Lotor knew, the Paladins had special bonds to their specific Lions, and to the other Paladins. But to another Lion…and for Lance to have a connection to the _red_ one, out of all of them…

            “He hasn’t been allowed near them at all,” the officer answered. “I haven’t been able to get to him to ask him if he’s been able to talk to them through their bond, either.”

            _“And unfortunately, I can’t get through to them to ask,”_ Allura said. _“The distance is too great. I won’t be able to connect to them until we strike.”_

            Strike?

            _Please, elaborate,_ Lotor thought, narrowing his eyes.

            “Do you have a plan yet?” the officer asked, and Lotor smirked.

            _“Not quite,”_ said a voice that sounded much like the Black Paladin, although much wearier than usual. _“We’ve still got a lot of allies to get into contact with, and we’re gonna need info about the base. Can you give us anything, like guard rotations, or…?”_

            _“I can help her get those,”_ another voice jumped in, one that sounded vaguely familiar. It definitely didn’t belong to any of the remaining Paladins, nor the princess’s advisor. _“Mir, I need you to patch me into the system. From there, I can get all of the data I need.”_

            _Data? Oh no—_

            “I can’t really do it from here,” the officer admitted. “I’ve already been here long enough, and if another officer sees this transmission, they’re going to get suspicious.”

            _“Mir,”_ the familiar voice repeated. _“It’ll take two ticks.”_

            Lotor chose then to rap on the door, and then duck off to the side. He still heard the gasp, the hurried, “Someone’s outside, I have to go, I’m sorry, I’ll get into contact again soon—”

            And then the transmission cut off, interrupting protesting voices.

            Lotor quietly unsheathed his sword, waiting with bated breath as footsteps sounded on the other side of the door. For a few seconds, there was nothing, and then the door opened. The officer peered out tentatively, down the wrong side of the hallway, and Lotor seized the moment. He snatched the officer around the waist and held his blade to their neck.

            The officer was ready.

            Lotor neglected to check them for weapons, forgetting that this _wasn_ _’t_ the arena, where they were already searched and stripped of anything that could be used for defense. He let go and leapt back as the officer drew a knife, which elongated into a sword before his eyes.

            The mark on the hilt was unmistakable.

            “So I _didn_ _’t_ exterminate all of you pests,” Lotor snarled, brandishing his own blade. “Somehow, you’ve managed to slip through the cracks.”

            The officer said nothing, but merely lifted their blade in response.

            “I’ll tell you what,” Lotor said, when the officer didn’t run, but didn’t rush at him, either. “You sabotage Team Voltron, and divulge every last detail of their plan that you know, and I’ll let you go free. I’ll act as though this never happened, and as long as you continue to aid me, I’ll grant you immunity.”

            “I won’t sell them out,” the Marmorite spat.

            Lotor _tsk_ ed. He hadn’t thought they’d give in, but it was still worth a shot nonetheless. “What a tragedy.”

            He attacked first, with a lunge and a thrust, and the Marmorite blocked. They blocked his next swipe, too, and slash, and then took off running down the hall. They were only slightly taller than Lotor, but their longer legs and presumable Marmorite training gave them the edge. Lotor scowled and brought the commlink on his wrist to his mouth.

            “Attention all officers,” Lotor said. “Lock down all sectors aboard Central Command. We’ve a traitor in our midst.”

            As Lotor lunged again, while the officer stopped in front of a door and was forced to stand their ground, he wondered how many more traitors were hiding, and were now panicking and scrambling to cover themselves. Wondered if maybe the Blue Paladin heard the announcement and was panicking again. _Again,_ because apparently that was a thing that had been happening, and happening frequently.

            _He truly is their weakest link. How pathetic._

            Lotor supposed Lance’s looks made up for what he lacked in fortitude.

            Lotor mulled over all of these things as he engaged the Marmorite in tense combat, studying their form, technique, footwork. Their form—excellent. Technique? _Nearly_ impenetrable. Footwork? They might’ve made a fine dancer in another life, but they’d never get that chance in this one.

            The Marmorite had a tell, Lotor discovered. They’d swing one way and leave their chest open for just a fraction of a second too long. Lotor saw their eyes dart to their target—Lotor’s own neck. When they swung, Lotor ducked and lunged and stabbed, purposely missing their vital organs. He was aiming to _maim,_ to keep them alive long enough for a visit to the druids, and then a brief journey into the arena.

            “Hm. You put up a decent fight, I’ll give you that,” Lotor said, sheathing his sword as the Marmorite doubled over, their own blade clattering out of their grasp as their hands flew to their chest to staunch the flow of blood. “Somehow, I don’t think you’ll be as rebellious against the druids.”

            Lotor picked up the Marmorite blade and swung, bringing the butt of the sword against the officer’s temple. The officer crumpled, and Lotor sneered down at them.

            “This is what you get for siding against me. You didn’t learn from the falls of your comrades, I can see that plainly.”

            Lotor ordered guards to his location, ordered them to take the Marmorite to the druids. Then he ordered the druids, over his comms, to search for anything and everything related to Voltron. Plans. Divulged secrets. Any chinks in the team’s armor that he could exploit. He did this all while lifting the lockdown, swaggering his way to the bridge to accomplish his initial goal.

            He arrived on the bridge to agitated officers. None of them appeared too pleased to have had their day interrupted by a lockdown for _another_ traitor, after they’d thought traitors had been dealt with over a phoeb ago. Lotor understood their pain—after all, he, too, regretted seeing someone mildly competent setting themselves up to crash and burn.

            “You,” Lotor said, pointing to one officer, and the officer stiffened momentarily. Lotor rolled his eyes. “You’ve done nothing to get yourself executed. _Yet._ Relax. I simply want you to order every available fleet we have to the Castle of Lions. The matter is urgent. If the fleet isn’t busy, if it isn’t stationed on another planet, if it isn’t en route somewhere—call it. We attack without mercy, and we attack until the Red Paladin, at the very least, is dead. These fleets are to kill anyone who stands in their way, other Paladins and Voltron allies alike.”

            The officer nodded, held a fist to their chest, and then got to work.

            “And you,” Lotor said, and gestured to a different officer, who stood at attention immediately. “Make an announcement to all of Central Command. Let everyone know there will be another execution in the arena sometime this movement.”

            An idea hit Lotor at that very moment. The corners of his mouth turned up as he added, “And make sure to let everyone know that _I_ won’t be performing the execution. _Jeremy_ will.”

* * *

            Several days passed after Lance’s breakdown, several days that Lance stayed in his room.

            He couldn’t bring himself to get out of bed. Didn’t shower. Didn’t eat. He shooed away Lotor early yesterday morning, when the emperor made an attempt to come in and comfort him, declaring that he had special news. Lance didn’t want to hear it. He said he’d hear it tomorrow.

            Well, it was tomorrow.

            Lance stared at the ceiling as Central Command’s night cycle ended, and the lights flickered on. Yet another restless night, another night Lance couldn’t allow himself to be vulnerable in the dark. It was only then that the nightmares attacked—Lance wouldn’t let himself fall victim to horrors in his slumbering hours, when he was facing enough in his waking ones.

            He’d been motionless in bed for a half hour when his door opened, and Lotor poked his head in.

            _Go away,_ Lance thought miserably, rubbing at his eyes, the bags distinct underneath them.

            His sleeping schedule was fucked beyond repair. His days following his breakdown mostly consisted of sleeping during the day, eating what little bits of food he could bring himself to in the time he was awake, and then reflecting on everything and hating himself all through the night.

            “Jeremy?” Lotor asked softly. “Are you awake?”

            _You already know the answer to that._

            “Yeah,” Lance answered hoarsely.

            Lotor strode into the room, either oblivious to or overlooking Lance’s demeanor as he perched on the edge of Lance’s bed. Lance watched him carefully, as Lotor was the most chipper he’d been in a while. He grinned brightly, eyes wide with a certain glint to them that had Lance on edge as soon as he noticed it.

            “Good morning, my love,” Lotor greeted, and pressed a palm against Lance’s cheek. “Sleep well?”

            _No,_ Lance thought, _and you should know that._

            Even if the Galra had limited knowledge of human biology, Lotor should’ve known what sleep deprivation looked like on Lance. He spent enough time chasing him across galaxies, spent enough time trying to adjust him to life on Central Command, to know when he was completely and utterly _exhausted_.

            “I guess,” Lance answered instead.

            “Good. I have some news I think you’ll enjoy,” Lotor said.

            News he’d enjoy, huh. Probably code for _news I_ _’ll enjoy, and news you’ll pretend to enjoy while you gag on the inside._ Lance braced himself for it, and cocked his head, a silent signal for Lotor to continue.

            “I’ve found another traitor to the Empire,” Lotor began. “A Marmorite. It seems I haven’t been able to rid myself of them entirely.”

            “Really?” Lance asked, feigning interest, while something knotted in the pit of his stomach.

            Marmorite. Lance knew very few by name, and hadn’t realized there was another one aboard Central Command. One he could’ve been seeking out. One who could’ve helped him get back into contact with the team— _and what were they doing to get caught?_

            “Yes,” Lotor said. “I’ve scheduled an execution in the arena that I’d…like you to be present for.”

            Iciness edged Lotor’s words. Lance refrained from recoiling, fingers tightening where they clutched the blankets of his bed. He sat up slowly, Lotor’s hand falling away from his face. All the while, Lotor smiled at Lance, a smile not unlike that of the Cheshire Cat.

            _I have to be dreaming this, I must_ _’ve fallen asleep—_

            “You see…you’ll be the one performing the execution,” Lotor said. “I find it rather fitting—your execution of the Red Paladin would’ve been public. Seeing as he’s been eliminated, someone with ties to his ancestry is the next thing.”

            _Eliminated._

            Lance hated it, every time Lotor brought up Keith’s death. He’d hated it before, when it was just some ploy to coerce him into cooperating with Lotor, and he hated it even more now. His chest tightened, and Lance willed himself to breathe, because this time, there was no lie.

            Keith was gone, plain and simple, and it was his fault.

            “Me?” Lance asked. A mistake—his voice came dangerously close to wobbling. He couldn’t appear _weak_ here, at the idea of executing someone he was supposedly against.

            “Yes,” Lotor answered, and continued smiling pleasantly. “As of right now, I have plans to broadcast the execution to the universe at large. It will be your defining moment. Just as my officers disbelieve that you should take your rightful place as my second-in-command, so do many people across the galaxies. This will solidify your role in this war, once and for all.”

            Lotor reached for Lance’s hands, and Lance let go of his blankets. If Lotor noticed the trembling when he threaded their fingers, he didn’t acknowledge it.

            “Everyone will finally see that you are mine,” Lotor murmured. “You are mine, and I am yours.”

            _No thanks,_ Lance thought, face flushing.

            He reciprocated when Lotor leaned in and kissed him. When Lotor pulled back, and then stood up and suggested Lance get ready for the day, he waved him off.

            “I will soon,” Lance promised.

            “Soon,” Lotor emphasized. “We’ve much to do in preparation. The execution is set to take place tomorrow. I think today, we’ll have you back on the training deck. While your skills with a sword have grown considerably…there are places your technique can be tweaked. And perhaps…there are a few things _you_ can teach _me._ ”

            If Lance was blushing before, his face burned now, as Lotor strode out of the room and shut the door.

            After the door shut, Lance made no move to get up. He stared at it, body tingling numbly. He blinked slowly, picking apart the exchange that had just occurred, and realized he’d never told Lotor _no._ He never said _maybe you should execute the traitor,_ never said _I_ _’m not really in the mood for holding weapons and taking lives again,_ never said _I can_ _’t kill this person._ He agreed to be the hand that ended the life of someone who could’ve helped him.

            He agreed to seal their doom.

            _Why?_

            _Why are you still putting up the facade?_

            Lance’s hands shook again, harder than before. He hugged himself, shivering, digging his nails into his arms, hard enough that he was certain there would be marks left behind.

            His one major reason for putting up the facade was to garner information, to find out where Keith was and get him out of his situation alive. But now?

            Keith was dead.

            He’d been dead for days.

            _He_ _’s been dead for days,_ Lance repeated, over and over again in his mind. Before, the words had been oil on water, but now, they sank in, a puzzle piece finding its slot, a lock finally clicking and giving way.

            Lance had not heard of a single threat against Central Command. If Keith had been dead for days…wouldn’t the team’s next move be to break Lance out? He told them to go after Keith first—his presence aboard Central Command for over a month had to be proof that they’d understood the Morse code he’d blinked to them. It had to be.

            Right?

            _What if they didn_ _’t realize?_

_They_ _’re disgusted with you. They want nothing to do with you. They think you like being here._

            _I don_ _’t,_ Lance tried to argue with himself.

_Jeremy begs to differ._

_I did what I had to do to_ survive, _it wasn_ _’t_ me _—_

            But it was him, wasn’t it?

            That same cold panic set in, dizzying his senses, because it was _true._ He’d had a choice, waking up in that cramped cell. He’d had a million choices, innumerable ways to earn Lotor’s trust without losing sight of himself and his goals, without betraying his identity, without selling out his own team. Control hadn’t been ripped away from him—he’d handed Lotor the reins the moment he said he couldn’t remember who he was, and the moment he ran with Lotor’s stories. Lotor set the scene, and Lance followed the script.

            _You dug this grave._

            He hadn’t just dug a grave, a neat little hole in the ground. He’d constructed a whole subterranean tunnel system, and now he was lost, with no way to see the surface.

            Daedalus, reaping the consequences of his labyrinth.

            _I can_ _’t go through with this. I can’t do it. I need to get out of this._

            Was there even a point in keeping up the Jeremy persona? A point in slaughtering someone who’d been _on his side_ , all for the sake of keeping up a charade initially designed to keep _Keith_ safe?

            How could he go back to the team with the blood of an ally on his hands?

            _They won_ _’t take you back. They won’t come to rescue you. They’ll come for the Lions, and leave you to rot._

            A new ache bloomed in Lance’s chest at the thought of Red and Blue. They still wouldn’t respond to him. If Lance couldn’t feel the tether-like connection still linking them…

            _Please,_ Lance thought feebly, _can one of you give me some kind of sign? I know you_ _’re there. Please._

            Lance waited, tears springing to his eyes the longer the silence continued.

            “I’m _sorry_ ,” Lance whispered. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I didn’t mean for any of it to happen. I-I just—I’m so sorry.”

            _They_ _’re revolted._

_And it_ _’s all my fault._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i initially had different plans for the next chapter, but i'll let u in on a little secret:
> 
> the next chapter continues lance's pov ;)
> 
> SEE YA WHENEVER, I HAVE A BREAK THIS WEEKEND SO MAYBE IT GOES UP THEN?? IF I WRITE IT THAT FAST??? I'M PRETTY MOTIVATED RIGHT NOW GUYS THIS IS LIKE SUMMER AGAIN AND I'M HERE FOR IT
> 
> SEE YA THEN


	25. The One in Which an Ultimatum is Given

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lunch with Lotor becomes Lance's waking nightmare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You have no idea how excited I am to post this chapter. So excited that it's only 10:37 PM, I HAVE TIME TO DO MY HOMEWORK WOW.
> 
>  
> 
> **Trigger warning for some major dubcon stuff in here (no sex though, I'm not going that far, it's not even really physical stuff except for the usual kissing, but anyway).**

Chapter 25

            Sweat clung to every inch of Lance as the last training bot fizzled out, and he dropped his sword and collapsed to his knees. His limbs ached; the suit of thin armor he’d been permitted to wear wasn’t protective in the least, more for show than anything else. How he managed to get through twenty-three levels on the training deck without stopping, rolling with each punch, was unknown to him. He’d never been able to go this long on the castle’s training deck, and he wondered if maybe the castle’s bots were harder, or he was just too desperate to get out of here. Or both.

            “Excellent work,” Lotor commended him from behind the glass wall separating the training deck from the observation deck. “I think you’re thoroughly prepared for every contingency tomorrow.”

            After Lance had gotten ready for the day, Lotor had returned to escort him to the training deck, and regaled him with tales of his so-called _harrowing experiences_ with executing his traitors, as if Lance hadn’t already seen footage ripped from security feeds and sent to the Castle of Lions. He recounted his fearless acts of heroism, his death-defying maneuvers as he battled two Marmorites whose names he hadn’t bothered learning (“A traitor deserves to die nameless, and be lost to history for their cowardice,” Lotor had explained, and Lance pretended like the sentiment didn’t have him shivering.).

            Lance wiped his forehead with his arm, nodding up at Lotor. “Yeah.”

            And with a sword, no less. Just two days filled with hours-long sessions on this deck, and Lance could properly defend himself with a blade, and then some. It still wasn’t like he could _fillet_ a person with a sword—his technique wasn’t _nearly_ that good—but if this were the Garrison, and these were his piloting skills, then he’d have made fighter class the first time, no problem.

            If only he hadn’t gained this skill under Lotor’s guidance.

            “On that note, I believe that’s enough training for the quintant,” Lotor said, smiling down at Lance.

            Lance forced a smile back, hefted his sword, and brought it back to the weapons wall, the red and blue bayards glaring down at him in a way they hadn’t last time, almost as though they were ready to jump out of their cases and bash him over the head just to prove that he wasn’t worthy of wielding them. Not anymore.

            _Unclean,_ the red one whispered.

            _Monster,_ the blue one followed up.

            He’d already dirtied his hands mowing down a slew of guards. He’d directed battleships and fighters to innocent planets and they’d _fallen,_ no doubt taking hordes of innocent citizens down with them. His antics brought about _Keith_ _’s death._ And now he was preparing to kill an ally. A Marmorite. Someone who’d no doubt been trying to help the team.

            _Coward._

_Weak._

_Shut up._

            Lance flexed his fingers to keep them from curling and stepped away from the wall. He waited on the training deck, as Lotor emerged from the observation deck and came to his side. He studied Lance, and the way his hair fell out of its gel slick and into his face, the way its ends curled with sweat. Lotor reached out a hand and ran his fingers through Lance’s hair, frowning.

            “Why don’t you get cleaned up?” Lotor suggested. “Afterward, we’ll have a private lunch. Just us.”

            Lotor said this as thought it was a dismissal, but when Lance agreed with a nod and a muttered, “Alright,” Lotor followed him out of the training deck, and interlocked their fingers as they walked back to Lance’s room. When they stopped outside of Lance’s door, Lotor swept Lance into an embrace, and then a kiss, before he could even get his bearings. Lance pulled away before Lotor could go too deep with it.

            “I’m dirty,” Lance explained, trying not to sound hurried. “This would be much better if I were showered.”

            Lotor cocked his head. “Well…I suppose I can’t argue with that.”

            _Thanks,_ Lance thought sarcastically, face flushing.

            “Go on. Clean up. I’ll be returning shortly,” Lotor said. He never once stopped smiling at Lance—Lance could feel that smile burning his backside as Lotor opened the door to his room, and he entered and let the door shut behind him.

            Once the echoes of Lotor’s footsteps in the hallway faded and died, Lance deflated like a balloon, slumping against the wall. He dragged a hand through his hair, purposely messing it up, trying to rid the strands of the ghost of Lotor’s touch. The mussed strands fell nearly into Lance’s eyes, and Lance’s heart sank. His hair hadn’t been this long when he’d been taken, its new growth a testament to how long he’d been gone.

            _You can_ _’t leave if you don’t get moving,_ Lance reminded himself. He ignored the enticing calls of his bed and headed for the shower.

            For a while, he stood underneath the hot water, letting it cascade over himself and his injuries. He could almost imagine the water washing away his sorrows, carrying them down the drain, but he knew better. It would take more than a shower to cleanse him of everything he’d done, and everything he had yet to do.

            Including the execution.

* * *

            Just under an hour later, Lance roamed the halls of Central Command with his fingers interlaced with Lotor’s. He noted the route they walked, and realized he’d gone this way before—it appeared their private lunch would be held on the same observation deck where they’d had dinner not too long ago.

            The door opened with a hiss when they reached it, Lotor gesturing for Lance to enter the room first as they let go of each other. Lance obliged with no small sense of unease. Lotor followed, and shut the door behind them. By now, Lance shouldn’t have been flinching at the sound, but still had to resist the urge to do so this time around.

            The setup in the room was much the same as last time—same table, same glittering cloth, same chairs, almost as though none of it had been touched since their previous date. The only difference lay in the lighter lunch spread, more food that Lance didn’t recognize but assumed was fare more suited for midday than evening.

            Lance’s gaze drifted beyond the table to the windows, where the metal blinds had already been drawn back, exposing a slightly different view than last time—Central Command had been drifting recently, it seemed. The nebulae and galaxies surrounding them appeared unfamiliar, not the same ones Lance had seen last time.

            Lotor must’ve followed Lance’s line of vision.

            “You always appear…mesmerized, whenever you look at the stars,” Lotor remarked, and took up Lance’s hand again and led him to the window. Lance fell into step without protest, thoughts already stuck elsewhere, on a white castle, on a broken family, on a blue planet—anywhere but the command center, anywhere but this observation deck.

            He didn’t want to come back to reality. Reality meant another bomb being dropped on him, probably. Last time he’d eaten here with Lotor, Lotor had told him that he was being _reinstated_ as his second-in-command, followed by a sudden proposal. The first time, he’d gotten out of it by citing a need for time to recover. The second time, he’d requested Keith, dead or alive. But now he’d had plenty of recovery time. Keith was gone.

            There was no way Lance could worm his way out of this one. He already needed to figure out a way out of tomorrow’s execution, if such a way existed. Too many rejections would raise suspicions. Lotor was probably already suspicious of the abnormal amounts of time Lance had recently spent wallowing in anguish in his room.

            _Take it easy._

            Calming himself down wasn’t easy. Too many possible avenues for this date existed, and Lance had no desire to walk down any of them.

            “Yeah,” Lance said quietly. “The stars are peaceful, I guess.”

            Peaceful, and hiding the pain and suffering of countless people. The Galra conquered galaxies and planets that Lance could not see, and continued to do so while he remained here, _watching._ His—the team wept, probably, for their fallen member. Back on Earth, families struggled in preparation of—

            _No._

It’d been nearing on a year since his disappearance from the Garrison _before_ he’d gotten captured. Though the exact time escaped him, now, he knew it was at least over a month. The one-year anniversary had likely passed—

            _…And how long ago was my birthday?_

 _Hunk_ _’s? Pidge’s?_

This entire time he’d had it in his head that he was seventeen. That Hunk and Keith were seventeen. That Pidge was fourteen. But if at least a year had passed, then at least one birthday had passed for all of them, birthdays missed amidst the chaos of saving the universe.

            He became an adult in space, while back on Earth, his family likely mourned.

            _Breathe. Breathe, Lance, you gotta breathe._

“Jeremy?” Lotor asked, drawing Lance’s attention. The emperor cocked his head, frowning in concern. “Something wrong, my love?”

            _Too close._

            “No,” Lance lied. “Training was just…rather exhausting.”

            Okay, so training being exhausting wasn’t a lie. The shower had done nothing to reinvigorate him. If anything, the hot water made him all the more inclined to just crawl into bed and sleep, fresh-faced and clean. His body craved rest, and the prospect of performing mental gymnastics just to make it through this lunch worsened everything.

            “Well, let’s eat, and then you can get back to your room for the rest of the day. You’ll need to be in top shape for tomorrow, after all,” Lotor said, and smiled as he tugged Lance over to the table.

            Lance cast one more wistful look at the stars, and then tore his gaze away.

            Just as he’d done before, Lotor pulled out Lance’s chair for him. Lance tried not to practically collapse into it, leaning back as Lotor pushed the seat in. Still, even through his weariness, Lance kept his guard up, observing Lotor as he walked around to the other side of the table and sat down in his own seat.

            “I must admit,” Lotor said, “I’m quite looking forward to tomorrow.”

            The emperor hummed, reaching forward to fill his plate with food. Lance picked at the food before him, taking bits and pieces here and there. His last meal in this room proved that Lotor wasn’t out to poison him, at least. He still warily eyed his drink. It was flat, rather than fizzing, but a one whiff of it still gave Lance the impression of alcohol, regardless that it was space alcohol. Yet again, he wouldn’t chance it.

            There was no telling how strong this stuff was. Lance was no lightweight, but that _one incident_ remained branded at the back of his brain. If he ended up wasted, there was no telling what he’d reveal.

            Lance curled his fingers tighter around his utensils as the memory resurfaced.

            He had a penchant for escaping the Garrison property with Hunk. Sometimes they were authorized, on weekends off or on breaks. Most of the time, they weren’t. For Lance, it was a case of being away from his mother, and her loving but terrifying reign. He’d never step a foot out of line under her jurisdiction—he knew better. But Iverson? He never stood a chance. As it went, Lance did what he wanted, almost whenever he wanted. Including going to parties.

            The first few parties were okay. Lance had reached tipsy and loopy, but never full-on drunk. It wasn’t until one party, on some otherwise unmemorable Tuesday night, that Lance learned his alcohol limits, and learned never to exceed them ever again.

            Hunk hadn’t been drunk. Hunk was the responsible one, of the two of them, and had made diligent attempts to keep drinks away from Lance when he realized Lance was losing his marbles. Lance managed to evade him anyway, and that was when they both discovered that Lance was not some happy, giggly boy when he was drunk, as he’d assumed he’d be.

            He babbled. A lot. He poured his heart and soul out to whoever would listen to him, about his insecurities, about a possible sexuality crisis, about his inferiority complex. He was also _clingy as fuck,_ and hung onto whichever unfortunate soul became victim to his ranting. That night, it happened to be an otherwise nice girl who gave no indication she’d had a boyfriend. Lance learned that the hard way, when the boyfriend discovered the two of them talking, and took it out on Lance.

            He’d been lucky. Hunk stepped in only a few minutes into the altercation, and Lance came out of it with only a few bruises and a sprained wrist, but it was the last time they went to the club they’d been at that night, and the last time Lance got drunk.

            He only ever spoke to Hunk about his insecurities and inferiority. He never brought up the sexuality crisis again until a year or two later, in the middle of _fucking space,_ after not having touched it with a ten foot pole.

            If he got drunk here, there was no telling what he’d reveal.

            Worse, he’d probably spend the whole time cuddled up to Lotor.

            He didn’t think he needed to be exposing his deepest fears, his entire scheme, and his guilt to the one person he was supposed to be deceiving while he practically dangled off of him.

            “Aren’t you?” Lotor said, pointedly, and Lance realized he’d been zoning out.

            “Oh. Yeah,” Lance answered, and scooped something bluish and sort of leafy onto his spork.

            Lotor leaned forward, eyes narrowed. Lance tensed under his scrutinizing gaze, a reaction he couldn’t stop.

            “You’re nervous,” Lotor said slowly. “Why?”

            _Use this to your advantage._

            Lance averted his eyes, staring at a spot on the ground as he set down his spork and leaned back in his seat. “Nothing. I-It’s nothing.”

            “Clearly it’s not nothing,” Lotor replied. “What’s troubling you?”

            Lance clenched his fingers against the armrests of his chair. “I’ve just…the look on your face. The judgment. I’ve…I remember seeing it. Before. On the Red Paladin’s face, when he was trying to get me to pretend to love him.”

            Lance dragged his eyes back to Lotor like the action pained him, like he hated to compare Keith to Lotor—which wasn’t exactly a _wrong_ statement, but in this context, well.

            “So your memory’s returning?” Lotor asked, and also leaned back, softening his features just the slightest. “Anything else you remember?”

            Lance nodded, lips pursed. “I remember…there…there were so many people…”

            Lotor smiled encouragingly.

            “I had to kill so many people,” Lance said, voice growing hoarse.

            He was surprised to find his eyes misting, burning. He blinked several times to no avail—the wetness grew, and his vision blurred momentarily. Maybe the blurring was why Lotor didn’t appear to hold an ounce of sympathy in his expression, why his face shifted between suspicious and smug and reserved and blank all at once.

            _Don_ _’t slip._

 _You can_ _’t slip._

“Galra soldiers,” Lance elaborated after swallowing. “People on my side. People I was supposed to _protect_. That was the whole point of infiltrating the Paladins, wasn’t it? To protect the Empire?”

            Lance stared at Lotor with wide eyes, pleadingly, like he couldn’t discern fact from fiction for himself.

            “Well, yes, in a sense,” Lotor said. “The goal was to destroy Voltron from the inside. In doing so, you would ensure the safety of the Empire, by getting rid of its biggest opponent.”

            Lance nodded. “Right.”

            “Is there anything else?” Lotor asked. “I don’t wish to make you uncomfortable—especially not in the manner the Red Paladin did.”

            _Now. While you have him here._

            “I can’t go into that arena tomorrow,” Lance whispered. “The Red Paladin—he—he made me kill. He wouldn’t let me out of it, he—my hands are _so dirty_ —”

            Lance dropped his head. He couldn’t see beyond the gloves he wore, but he was certain his knuckles were white, with how tightly he gripped his chair now, nails threatening to tear through the fabric as he dug them in.

            “Nonsense,” Lotor said.

            Lance raised his eyes.

            “These are not people on our side,” Lotor said, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “They’re traitors to our empire. To _us._ They’ve been aiding the Paladins, my love. Marmorites are not to be trusted, and cannot be left alive. Think of this as your revenge on the Red Paladin—destroying every last one of his causes. Freeing yourself from him.”

            “I’ve already killed him on the training deck,” Lance replied. “I—I can’t—I don’t want—”

            “My love,” Lotor interrupted, “you must calm yourself. If you truly don’t want to go through with the execution…I will do it. I’ll do it for you.”

            Lance didn’t relax.

            “You will?”

            “I would do anything for you, my love. But.”

            _There it is._

            Lotor reached into the robes he wore and produced a small box, very much not unlike the ones Lance had seen on Earth. Velvet. Lance wondered if at some point, Lotor sent one of his officers on a covert mission to the space mall.

            “Would you do this for me, then?” Lotor asked, and opened the box.

            A gold band, studded with red tourmaline.

            Bile crawled up the back of Lance’s throat. The gemstone was a perfect blend of that awful purple-pink Lance only ever associated with the Empire, and the red that accompanied his thoughts of Keith. Lance eyed the band with revulsion. A power move, clearly.

            “Lotor,” he said, because he lacked words otherwise.

            Everything in him itched to say no. If he said yes, there was no telling how soon Lotor would want to pull off a marriage ceremony. If that happened, then he’d be bound to Lotor. At least, Jeremy would be.

            “You hesitate,” Lotor said, a look of hurt flashing across his face.

            “I—I just—”

            _Just say yes. Just get this over with._

            Lance didn’t get the chance to answer.

            Lotor’s expression became downright crestfallen, as one hand dipped back into his pockets. He held onto some device Lance couldn’t see. Anxiety buzzed beneath Lance’s skin.

            “L-Lotor—”

            Something clicked, and at once, restraints locked him into place against his chair. At his ankles, at his wrists, around his chest and biceps. Lance stared at Lotor, a deer in headlights, panicked.

            “You know, Lance,” Lotor said casually, smiling, and Lance almost threw up right there, “you are an _exceptional_ actor. I’ve considered letting this drag out, but this charade of yours is becoming more of a nuisance, than something I can use to my advantage.”

            _R-Red_ _…B-Blue, please—_

            Lotor laced his fingers together and placed both elbows on the table, setting his chin down on the cradle he’d created. “I’ll admit, you had me fooled for…about the last phoeb, I’d say. But the public doesn’t need to know that.”

            Lance swallowed hard. “I-I—b-but—”

            “I was going to find out eventually,” Lotor said, and leaned back again.

            Lance tried to ignore how much Lotor was moving. It was almost like he was doing it on purpose, to draw his attention, to keep him unfocused.

            “How?” Lance asked. “I—”

            “The druids,” Lotor answered simply.

            The druids? When—

            Oh.

            … _Oh._

            Lance hadn’t felt them in his mindscape. He had no recollection of them rooting around in his thoughts and memories, but apparently, it’d _happened._ Unless they erased it from his memory? Unless…was he in a sim? Right now? Was _this_ his mindscape?

            _No. Breathe. This is real._

            “You’ve known for almost a week,” Lance said, lip curling in disgust. “Why didn’t you do anything? Why not just have the druids control me?”

            “Well, like I said.”

            Lotor sat forward again, picked up his spork, and continued to eat his lunch, all while Lance watched, unmoving.

            “I wanted to see,” Lotor said, between bites, “how long you would drag out your performance. I was impressed, you’d managed to go that long. Besides—I think I’d much rather let you choose what to do, than compel you with the force of one of my druids.”

            “Not like I have many choices around here,” Lance snapped.

            Lotor shrugged and set his spork back down. “You had many chances to kill me, didn’t you? And yet, here we sit. Why _didn_ _’t_ you kill me? Why did you choose to share a bed with me?”

            Lance’s face burned.

            “I—no, you know what? I won’t tell you.”

            “Suit yourself,” Lotor replied. “Perhaps you don’t want to admit that somewhere along the way, you developed real feelings, and now you refuse to admit it. It would be a betrayal to your precious _Keith,_ after all, wouldn’t it?”

            “Shut up,” Lance said, stiffening. “Don’t you dare say his name.”

            The heat in his face spread through the rest of him, indignation and shame racing to claim the rush.

            “So you don’t deny it. Interesting,” Lotor said.

            Lance glared, hands curling into fists. He imagined himself ripping right out of the metal restraints, taking up the knife on the table, and attacking Lotor before the emperor could stop him. He’d jump on top of the table, food be damned. That would give him the advantage, and he could go right for the face.

            “So, now, seeing as I have you here, would you hear me out? I’m not going to hurt you.”

            _You already have,_ Lance wanted to say.

            Lotor had known, then, that day he pitted Lance against the Keith simulation. He hadn’t just been smiling at the sight of Lance taking down the Red Paladin—he’d been smiling because he knew full well that Lance was suffering.

            Lance didn’t say that.

            “You may have noticed that ever since I’ve known, you have not been a captive. You haven’t been controlled by the druids. I’m not here to hurt you. You’ve proven yourself more than capable of leading,” Lotor said, voice calm.

            “If I’m not a captive, then why am I restrained?” Lance asked, and turned up his palms, cutting his eyes to the metal keeping him against the chair.

            “Because you won’t hear me out otherwise,” Lotor said evenly.

            Lance set his jaw, and Lotor continued.

            “You’ll notice, the Red Paladin has been dead for several quintants—and yes, I knew when his real passing occurred.”

            _Real passing._

            “He’s really gone?”

            It came out as a near-squeak, and Lance couldn’t stop it in time. He shrank back in his chair.

            “Yes,” Lotor said.

            He opened his mouth, as though he were going to add on something else, but closed it again. Fresh tears burned at Lance’s eyes. He thought he could come to terms with it, but this—to have it _confirmed,_ by someone who would have known…

            _You can_ _’t trust a word he says. He lied to you for almost a week._

“In the time since, Voltron has made several threats against Central Command, swearing to come back and get the Lions, and exact revenge in the Red Paladin’s name…but they’ve never mentioned coming back for you,” Lotor went on.

            “I haven’t heard of any threats,” Lance said carefully.

            “I kept them quiet,” Lotor said. “So far, none have been acted upon. I assume things will change. I haven’t yet sent my forces after them, but once they strike…I cannot let them come back for the Lions. I’m sure you can understand.”

            “You can’t hurt them,” Lance said, shaking his head. “Please. You can’t.”

            “And why do you plea on their behalf? They’ve written you off. They cared only for the Red Paladin. Now that he’s passed, they have no desire to rescue you,” Lotor responded. “What, do you think I’m _lying?_ ”

            Lance didn’t answer.

            Lotor turned up his nose. “Believe me, or don’t. I’m merely looking out for you. Now—you _will_ execute that Marmorite tomorrow. The public has been promised an appearance by Jeremy Ortega, and they _will_ receive that, _plus_ an engagement announcement.”

            “You tell me you won’t force me to do anything, and then you force me to do something. Make up your mind,” Lance said, eyes narrowed.

            “Watch the tone,” Lotor warned. “And I wouldn’t call it _forcing_ you—merely giving you a shove in the right direction.”

            “I won’t do it,” Lance said. “I refuse. Throw me into the cells, lock me up, _make_ me a captive, _I don_ _’t care_. But I won’t do it. I won’t betray them.”

            “No,” Lotor snapped back. “You think you’re getting out of this easily?”

            Lotor stood up, chair scraping the floor with a sound that grated on Lance’s ears. He stormed up to Lance’s chair, dragged it back, and turned it, so that he was standing over Lance. Lance sank down as much as the restraints would allow, while Lotor got right in his face.

            “First of all,” Lotor said, “you’ve _already_ betrayed them, several times over. After all, if you hadn’t sent us chasing down the Red Paladin, he wouldn’t have died in the _first place._ Secondly, you’ll do as I say, and not just for Voltron’s sake. Voltron’s already been targeted.”

            Lotor’s breath was hot on Lance’s face. Lance squirmed, and Lotor smiled, withdrawing. He started pacing about in front of the windows.

            “You’ll do as I say,” Lotor repeated, “because if you _don_ _’t,_ I’m _sure_ there are billions of people on Earth who would love to pay the price for your insubordination.”

            Lance paled. Lotor’s smile grew wider. He paused in his steps, and then walked forward, toward Lance again.

            “Yes. I think there are some in particular. Some…interesting families, I’d say. I had no idea that the Yellow Paladin had two mothers, or that the Green Paladin’s brother knew your Black Paladin. You know what else I found interesting? His uncle’s name was _Ryou._ Ryou Shirogane, how about that? And Takashi. Did you run that name by the Black Paladin before? I wonder.”

            Lance opened and closed his mouth, searching for words, but Lotor filled the silence before he could.

            “And then…mmm…I think the most interesting family was the McClains. Two wonderful parents, so many lovely children, and the _extended_ family. I never knew a family could have that many people. And of course, the files I found on the Galaxy Garrison cadets that these families spawned!”

            “Stop,” Lance said, voice shaking. “Y-You can’t—”

            “I can,” Lotor interrupted, “and I will. Unless you act accordingly. You don’t want to be responsible for the demise of your planet, do you?”

            Lance swallowed thickly. “No.”

            Lotor _wouldn_ _’t stop smiling._ He stood over Lance again, one hand braced on the back of Lance’s chair.

            “Good,” Lotor said. “Now. Tomorrow, you execute the Marmorite, and we announce our engagement, as Lotor and Jeremy. If one word gets out that I’ve been deceived this whole time, Earth will pay. You can go wherever you want aboard Central Command, with a weapon, but if any attempt is made on my life, or if I find you’ve tried to escape—or, dare I say it, escaped _successfully—_ or you’ve gotten into contact with Team Voltron, or attempted to, then you can say goodbye to your home planet. And above all, you _will_ continue to play this romance.”

            Lance flexed his fingers, set his jaw once more.

            He would be a prisoner in all but name.

            “Are we understood?” Lotor asked, tilting Lance’s head up at the chin.

            “Yes,” Lance said, a note of defeat in his voice.

            “That would be _yes, my love,_ ” Lotor corrected. “Try again.”

            “Yes, _my love,_ ” Lance ground out.

            “Excellent,” Lotor said, and reached back into his pockets for the clicker. He pressed it, and at once, the restraints released Lance. He couldn’t stand up, Lotor still bent over his chair. The emperor leaned down and pressed his lips against Lance’s. Lance almost didn’t kiss back, but the threat against Earth rang out in the back of his head.

            Lance shut his eyes, and he kissed Lotor back.

* * *

            Lance didn’t sleep during Central Command’s night cycle. He stayed up the whole time, plotting, scrapping plots, keeping breakdowns at bay, reaching futilely for the Lions trapped here with him. He had no success anywhere, and when the lights flickered back on overheard, Lance reluctantly swung his legs over the side of the bed, headed to the shower, and got ready for the day.

            He remained in the shower through the designated time that Lotor dropped breakfast by his room. He hid out in the bathroom while he got dressed and readied his face. He lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling, and only rose when Lotor came to get him to escort him to the arena.

            “Look alive, _Jeremy_ ,” Lotor said, intertwining their fingers.

            Lance smiled pleasantly, hatred burning in his gaze.

            The walk to the arena took far too long. Lotor dropped Lance off at the gladiator entrance, kissed him much longer than Lance liked, and then disappeared, scrambling to reach the dais that overlooked the arena, where once upon a time, Lance thought about murdering him. He should’ve, right then and there.

            “Citizens of this most glorious empire!” Lotor’s voice boomed around the arena, while Lance waited and observed from the shadows.

            Behind him, chains clanged, and Lance turned.

            Three officers escorted the Marmorite Lance was set to execute, and they looked worse for wear. Lance looked away and swallowed the lump forming in his throat.

            This was an ally he was about to kill. A life he was about to end. _One_ life, for billions back on Earth. It shouldn’t have been his call to make, to judge someone unworthy of living just to save others. But if he defied this order, there was no telling what Lotor would do. If they would obliterate Earth in one go; or if the citizens would be enslaved and the planet would become another mining colony; or if it would be a gradual, panic-filled destruction.

            “Today I bring you another traitor!” Lotor went on, and next to Lance, the Marmorite scoffed.

            “ _This_ is the best announcement he can do—”

            “Quiet,” the guard at the Marmorite’s left snapped.

            “Today, my second-in-command, my _betrothed,_ Jeremy Ortega, will be the one to rid this world of such filth!”

            That was their cue.

            The guards started out with the Marmorite, the crowd screaming. Then Lance followed, and the scream swelled into a deafening crescendo. His engagement ring stood out on his finger, and Lance resisted the urge to rip it off and chuck it into the packed sand of the arena floor. It kicked up slightly, in dust clouds around his feet, as he walked forward.

            A rack of weapons for him to choose from had been brought in. Lance approached it, the crowd chanting Jeremy’s name.

            There were too many weapons to choose from. Swords. Daggers. Handguns. Bayonets. Garrote wires.

            Lance’s hands trembled as they roved over the selection, and finally came to rest on a rifle.

            Quick. Nearly painless, if he aimed right.

            The only mercy he’d be able to bestow upon the Marmorite.

            Lance picked up the gun, turning it over in his hands. Unlike the training deck, he didn’t have a wide selection of rifles. This one’s weight felt off in his hands, but it would have to do.

            _You can do it. One shot, and then you_ _’re done. You don’t even have to look at them._

            Lance turned, and couldn’t _not_ look at the Marmorite. He was about to _kill_ them. They at least deserved a glance, some acknowledgment, even an _apology._

            Lance stalked forward and leveled the gun at the Marmorite’s forehead. The Marmorite locked eyes with him, and Lance had to hand it to them—they flitted, analyzing, and they must have seen the remorse, even through his tense posture, and the way his eyes narrowed.

            _They_ _’re coming for you,_ the Marmorite mouthed, and the gun trembled now, too. _He_ _’s alive._

            Lance nodded, almost imperceptibly, and hoped the Marmorite could see the apology in his gaze as he fired.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by me listening to Starset on repeat. All day. Literally all day. 
> 
> (I have a lot of Starset songs I associated with Klance, I am in PAIN, I MISS THEM. In the time it took to write this chapter I've cried over Klance at least once about every other day. SEASON 5 GIVE ME KLANCE CHALLENGE.)
> 
> ANYWAY. I suppose for this pain I can at least tell you that in the next chapter, we'll be seeing Keith again. FINALLY.
> 
> See ya then >;)


	26. The One in Which Keith Returns to the Land of the Living

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith's out of the pod.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)
> 
> **trigger warnings for intrusive thoughts, thoughts about dying, and symptoms of depression (i thiiiink? this is more of a potential warning, i mean, if you've got depression...or are knowledgeable of depression symptoms...you can see them, probably)**

Chapter 26

            “Keith?”

            A voice, reaching out in the darkness, fighting against searing blasts of heat. A shape, a shimmering blue. A humanoid form. Again, the voice, calling his name, cracking just the slightest. Light gasps as kaleidoscope eyes flicked about, straining to see, straining to _understand._

            In the shadows, Keith lay sprawled. It was cooler here, calmer here. Everything in him ached. Each time he moved, his body protested, cried out for him to stop, to finally _rest._ Tinny, echoing voices coaxed and cajoled him into staying, into not moving, into giving in. _Stay low. Stay away from the fire, away from the person._

            And then others. Two rumbling, anxious, terrified voices, shouting, encouraging. _Rise._

            “Keith, _please_ ,” the figure begged. “Answer me. You can’t give up now. You’ve come too far to quit.”

            _Can_ _’t quit…can’t quit…_

            The shadows moved like smoke, shifting above Keith’s face. A cloud thinned out, and a memory hovered. Keith stared up, face blank, at himself only a little over a year ago, dragging himself over burning sand. A cut in his leg bled, and he limped along on it, each step sending a new wave of dizzy exhaustion over him.

            _Can_ _’t quit._

The memory changed before Keith’s eyes. This time it was a mission gone wrong—the Black Lion remained powered down behind Keith, while he nursed an injury to his stomach that a lucky Galra soldier had managed. In his ears, the chatter of Hunk, over the comms, keeping him awake and talking while he and Lance drew in closer for a rescue.

            “Keith!”

            Footsteps. Running.

            The shadows stirred and parted, and the memories popped like bubbles and dissipated, and suddenly, Allura stood over him. Around him, the voices hissed.

            _Stay away._

_Leave him._

_Don_ _’t speak to her._

_Stay here with us._

_It_ _’s so much nicer here._

Around him, the others rumbled louder.

            _Follow her._

_Stand up._

_It_ _’s not your time._

Keith stared at the memory forming just beyond Allura, of strange-colored sky, of a winding mountain road. He’d gotten up then, hadn’t he?

            _And you were betrayed._

_You were ordered dead._

_You did nothing but suffer._

_Stay here._

_It_ _’ll be peaceful this time._

“Keith,” Allura said, and Keith blinked.

            “A-Allura…?”

            She extended a hand down to him. “I hear them, too. Don’t listen to them.”

            Keith recognized the threads of her magic, the light glowing around her entire form, concentrated especially on the outstretched hand. Warm. Inviting.

            _Simulation._

_Trap._

_Hallucination._

_Nightmare._

“Don’t listen to them,” Allura said, softening her voice. “This is real, Keith. This is your mindscape. This is happening.”     

            “I’m so tired,” Keith said, and while Allura held her voice together, Keith’s practically shattered. “I just want this to be over with. I-I—”

            “You _can_ do this,” Allura interrupted. “I believe in you. We _all_ believe in you.”

            _Rise, Paladin._

_You_ _’re not done yet._

_You burn too brightly to be snuffed out now._

            Allura smiled earnestly at him, eyes narrowed in determination. Even so, Keith watched a singular tear track down her face, slipping further down the longer he contemplated whether or not to take her hand.

            _“Get up,”_ Keith’s own voice ordered, and disbelieving laughter bubbled out of Keith. _“Get_ up. _You_ _’re gonna get hit by a truck, you idiot, now get_ up. _”_

 _“Would that be so bad?”_ Keith’s voice argued with itself.

            _“YES, NOW GET UP.”_

            Another tear down Allura’s cheek, and then another, and a sharp cry as Keith took her hand and she pulled him up. He collapsed into a crushing hug. His muscles were still tight, at first. A month of isolation. A month of running. A month of back-to-back betrayal, being passed between the Galra and labs and prisons.

            And then he melted.

            He couldn’t pinpoint the moment he started sobbing. He just knew that Allura held onto him tighter, and sobbed along with him. If you’d asked six months ago whether he’d ever be hugging anyone like this, let alone _Allura,_ he’d have laughed.

            Now, he welcomed the embrace.

            “I’m sorry it took us so long,” Allura whispered, after some time, when both of their cries had subsided into whimpers and sniffles, when they stopped trembling so hard. “You—I saw things, searching for you. You’ve been through far too much. I’m so sorry.”

            Keith shuddered. “Please don’t tell the others.”

            His voice came out quiet and hoarse, on the verge of breaking again.

            “I won’t,” Allura said, a steadfast promise.

            The two of them drew apart, Allura taking hold of Keith’s hands. It was grounding more than anything, a way to steady them.

            “You’re in a cryopod right now,” Allura explained gently. “You’ve…the poison in your system…we don’t know how long you’ll be in here. More than a week, for sure. It’s…complicated. We’ll all be waiting for you when you come out.”

            Keith nodded, and swallowed back his questions about Lance. About what the team had been up to before they’d rescued him, if maybe they’d found time to go to Central Command, or if they’d happened upon Lance on the battlefield.

            “Okay,” he whispered.

            Allura smiled, and began fading away, and the rest of Keith’s mindscape faded with her, into the blissful darkness that accompanied the pods.

* * *

            It was almost like blinking.

            Keith tumbled forward. After all of his time in captivity, he half-expected to hit the floor. Instead, though, a pair of strong arms caught him, and pulled him into a crushing hug before he could register what was happening. Momentarily, he stiffened, and arms holding him loosened just the slightest. Slowly, he pieced things together, and realized that _Shiro_ had caught him.

            Keith’s knees buckled.

            Shiro held him up, and other people joined in their hug—Pidge squeezed herself in around Keith’s waist, while Hunk encircled the three of them, and then made room for Allura. Coran, too, ended up in the group, supporting hands on Shiro and Hunk’s shoulders.

            For the most part, Keith held it together. Gradually, the others released him, Shiro the last to do so, once he was certain Keith wouldn’t collapse. Meanwhile, Hunk excused himself to the kitchen to go prep some food to put in Keith’s system, and Pidge hurried off to go get a blanket for Keith’s shivering frame.

            “How’re you feeling?” Shiro asked.

            He still had a hand braced against Keith’s back.

            Keith shook his head. His throat itched, and he couldn’t stop shaking from the cold of the cryopod. And even though no one said anything, Keith knew he looked and smelled like shit. His hair brushed his shoulders now, where it hadn’t touched before. Dirt, grime, and blood caked his scarred skin, matted his greasy hair. The shreds of his jumpsuit clung to his skin, and Keith wondered how long he’d been wearing it.

            He couldn’t voice the question.

            Instead, he looked around the room, at all of the other empty pods. Even for celebrating his recovery from something that should’ve killed him, Shiro, Allura, and Coran were suspiciously quiet. Maybe because Lance wasn’t present, and the sick feeling at Keith’s core told him that Lance wasn’t even aboard the castleship.

            “I need a shower,” Keith finally responded, voice gravelly. He rubbed at his throat, and found that his skin no longer burned when he touched it. The discoloration, too, was mostly gone, and a majority of the white lines had faded. Still, there were places Keith knew didn’t look quite right, or places where he could make out jagged marks made by the electroshocks.

            “You need to eat first,” Shiro said gently. “You don’t wanna pass out.”

            Actually, passing out into some real rest didn’t sound that bad.

            Keith didn’t say it. Instead, he let Shiro and Allura guide him to the kitchen, where Hunk bustled about. Maybe Keith was imagining it, maybe he was gone for so long that his perceptions of _normal_ had warped, but something seemed…off. He couldn’t place it right away, as he sat down and watched the Yellow Paladin, as Pidge entered the room and helped Shiro drape the blanket over his shoulders.

            _Sim,_ the voice in the back of his head whispered. _You can_ _’t trust any of this. Wake up, Keith._

            _This is real,_ Keith argued with himself.

            The sims and hallucinations were not gentle, and did not give him time to stop and think. The sims and hallucinations did not allow anyone to show him care or affection. If this was a sim, he likely would’ve been in a fistfight already, and yet, here he sat in a blanket in the kitchen, surrounded by the team.

            Still, that sense of wrongness permeated the air, and Keith shifted uncomfortably. If anyone else noticed it, they didn’t let on.

            Hunk set down a bowl of something that, judging by the smell and appearance, was decidedly not food goo. He handed over a spork and avoided Keith’s eyes as Keith took it. Then he turned back around and kept working, dishes and silverware clanging in the otherwise silent room.

            _That_ _’s it._

            The silence.

            The team was rarely ever silent like this—there was always some conversation going on. But no, now everyone sat and stood around, watching Keith, pretending they weren’t watching. Pidge perched cross-legged on top of the counter. Shiro sat down at another chair, pinching the bridge of his nose. Allura, too, sat, hands folded far too primly. Coran stood dutifully near the door, typing away at a holoscreen projecting from some tablet in his hand.

            The silence only broke up when a dish shattered, and Hunk swore so violently that Pidge almost fell off of the counter.

            Keith stilled in his seat, hot adrenaline flashing through his blood for a few terrifying seconds. He looked to the others, to gauge their reactions. Pidge rose from the floor on legs that weren’t as shaky as Keith would have expected them to be. Allura had taken a step back, but now frowned and righted herself. Coran and Shiro, on the other hand, had both taken steps forward. Shiro’s hand, outstretched, faltered as Hunk didn’t even so much as _look up_. Instead, he muttered to himself, words sharp and clipped as he went about picking up the dish pieces, almost as though he’d forgotten the others were still in the room.

            “Hunk—”

            “ _What?!_ ”

            Hunk whipped his head around, eyes narrowed at Shiro, face tight with anger. Keith shifted in his seat, and his hand flew to his side to reach for a weapon he didn’t have. No bayard to summon. No blade to unsheath. And then he realized—he was prepared to pull a weapon on a _teammate_.

            _This isn_ _’t normal._

            This wasn’t the team he’d left behind.

            Hunk was the last person on the team Keith would ever expect to be on edge like this, to swear like this, to snap at Shiro like this. And even then, scenarios like this rarely ever arose.

            _I told you, it_ _’s a simulation. You need to wake up._

            Keith’s hand curled tighter around his spork. This _wasn_ _’t_ a sim. No one was attacking him, no one was yelling at him. He was sitting in the kitchen, surrounded by the others. He remembered them being there when he’d passed out—Shiro, Allura, Hunk, Pidge, Coran, Tiva—

            Wait.

            _Where_ _’s Tiva?_

            Keith flicked his eyes over the group again, confirming that the Marmorite was nowhere to be found. Had she made it through the attack? Was she somewhere else on the ship, or had she gone back to the Blade?

            _Not the time._

            Keith blinked, and returned focus to the situation unfolding before him.

            Hunk still knelt on the floor, still muttering angrily to himself as he picked up the dish shards, each piece clinking against the others. Once, Pidge tried to help him, but some look from Hunk that Keith couldn’t see had her backing up, hands raised defensively.

            “Sorry,” she said quietly, voice holding none of the sarcasm Keith expected it to.

            Keith looked to Shiro, to Allura and Coran. Coran was the only one who caught his gaze, and smiled sympathetically, none of it reaching his eyes. Keith frowned and finally set his spork down.

            “How long?”

            Again, stillness and silence. Heads swiveled toward him and gazes locked on. Furtive glances toward the others. _Who_ _’s gonna take this one?_ they all seemed to be asking each other.

            “Three weeks,” Hunk finally answered bitterly, rising to full height, and Keith resisted the urge to shrink in his seat as his blood ran cold in his veins.

            Keith took in the sight of Hunk, then. The bags under his eyes, and the jitteriness to his hands, the dull look in his eyes where Keith expected to find light, the exhaustion weighing far too heavily on his shoulders.

            “What happened while I was gone?”

            Keith coughed as soon as the question was out, the phantom pain of his disease echoing in his body.

            “A lot,” Hunk said, words still hard, but softer than they’d been a moment ago. “We haven’t been able to go after Lance, and… _fuck,_ man…”

            Keith leveled his eyes at Shiro, practically begging for an extended explanation. Anything to distract from the sight of Hunk’s eyes glazing over with unshed tears, from the sight of Pidge coming to his side, a silent pillar of support.

            “There’s a lot we need to explain,” Shiro said gently. “It’s probably better for you to shower first, and get cleaned up. Come on—I’ll walk you to your room.”

            Keith didn’t protest. Didn’t remind Shiro that he’d eaten only about half of the food before him. He just nodded, pushed out of his seat, and started off toward his room, legs still not quite as steady as they should’ve been. Then Shiro was behind him, guiding hand on his back.

            Keith spoke again when they were halfway to his room.

            “What’s going on?” his whispered. “ _Nothing_ back there was normal.”

            “It’s been high-stress around here lately,” Shiro answered slowly, each word deliberate. “The shock of the entire situation hasn’t really worn off. We haven’t really had a break, between you in the pod, and…a lot of other things.”

            Keith stopped walking at that.

            Shiro stopped with him.

            “You keep saying that. _A lot._ Can you just tell me? What’s going on? Something happened with Lance, didn’t it? What happened?” Keith said, voice rising in volume, as each word scratched against his throat. He lifted a hand to his neck and rubbed, but he never once let his narrowed eyes leave Shiro.

            Shiro sighed. “It’s…easier if we showed you. Which is why we want you to shower first. You’ll at least be clean and a little more comfortable. Trust me, it’s…we’re not trying to keep anything from you. We just want you prepared.”

            “Prepared for what?!” Keith threw his hands up. “I’ve been getting my ass kicked for a _month_ and then almost _died_ and you think—”

            “Keith,” Shiro interrupted, “you _were_ dead.”

            Keith froze.

            “W-Wha—no, I-I was in my mindscape, I—”

            “You were dead. Not for a long time, but…for a lot longer than we would have liked,” Shiro explained, a hand coming to rest on Keith’s shoulder. “When we rescued you on Chincee, you were already almost there. You made it through the flight back to the castle, but then…”

            Shiro paused. His gaze went distant, fixed on some spot on the floor. He took a breath, and squeezed Keith’s shoulder. Keith opened and closed his mouth, at a loss for what to say.

            “Sh-Shiro—”

            “Then,” he repeated, and exhaled, and continued, “on the way to the med bay. That was when we lost you. It took twenty minutes for Allura to connect with you. Your recovery…we’ve got the Lions and Allura’s magic to thank for that, and the pods. If we’d reached you any later…”

            Another sharp inhale.

            And then he dragged Keith in for a bone-crushing hug, and all Keith could think was, _I_ _’ve been getting hugged a lot, lately._

            Hugs were a rarity before he joined Team Voltron. He remembered only a few between himself and his dad, before his dad disappeared. The next ones were from Shiro, but they were nothing like this—mostly a one-handed clasp and a clap on the back. Nothing this close. Nothing this steady. Not until Hunk and Lance, not until Pidge and Allura and Coran—not until Voltron entered his life, and all of their lives.

            “I’m alive,” Keith reassured Shiro quietly. “I’m here.”

            _You shouldn_ _’t be._

_You should_ _’ve died._

_How many times did you escape your fate?_

_It_ _’ll all catch up to you eventually._

            “You gave me a fucking heart attack,” Shiro muttered, and drew back. “When are you gonna stop with the reckless streak?”

            He smiled, thin and watery, and Keith couldn’t help but smile back. “Can’t help it. I’ve got stories.”

            Keith’s smile faded as he thought about his stories, about driving off a cliffside and tucking and rolling before the truck could hit the ground, about Luce and Stets, about the labs, about the marketplace.

            “You can tell all of us soon,” Shiro said. “Now go hit the shower.”

            “Yeah, yeah, I’m going.”

            Even as Keith left, Shiro trailed, until they reached Keith’s room, and Shiro had no more reason to worry that Keith would pass out in the middle of the castle hallways.

            Keith gave Shiro a nod over his shoulder, entered his room, and shut the door.

            Then he slumped against the door.

            He slid down against it, until his knees were drawn up in front of him, and took in the sight of everything. His shirt and pants, folded in a neat pile on his bed, knife resting on top of them. His boots, on the floor, standing tall and orderly. His jacket, hung just so in the corner.

            Everything untouched for over a month and a half.

            Keith could’ve sat there forever, a sense of numbness quickly replacing what little warmth had filled him in his interactions with Shiro and the others, but there was too much to do. Information to be exchanged, missions to be plotted.

            _Get up._ His own voice, again. _Get up, Kogane. You_ _’ve made it this far. You’ve still got a boy to bring home._

            Keith stood up, one hand braced against the door for support, and made the painstaking walk into the bathroom. Each bathroom on the ship came with a full-length mirror, and Keith pulled up short in front of his, barely remembering to shut the bathroom door.

            He could hardly call his reflection a person.

            Keith studied the emaciated body. Now, he could see the full extent of the damage done, each and every scar on his skin, the mess of a being he’d become. He trailed fingers over the blood on his face, traced a thumb over his newer scars, tugged at the hair brushing an inch or so past his shoulders.

            Keith frowned. Entered his bedroom. Took up his knife and stood closer to the mirror.

            Then he hacked at his hair. He sliced the knife through the strands, wincing as he tore straight through a few matted spots, until clumps of hair littered the ground at his feet. He glanced down at them, and then looked back up at his reflection. Good enough—his hair was about where he remembered it being before the mission.

            It wasn’t totally neat, but Keith was long past the point of caring.

            Keith kicked the hair on the floor into a pile in the corner and promised himself that he’d clean it up later, a promise he’d inevitably break, and stepped into the shower. He welcomed the warm water, and spent at least half an hour in there, scrubbing every inch of himself until his skin felt raw, and he could almost pretend the stain on his soul had been cleansed, too.

* * *

            Two hours later, Keith found himself in the dining room. Pidge’s laptop sat on the table in front of him, several videos pulled up and ready to play. Pidge knelt on the chair at his left, and Shiro sat to his right, while Hunk, Allura, and Coran hovered by his shoulders.

            “We’re all dying to find out what happened to you,” Pidge said, “but we figured you needed to see these, in case we get cut short. This is every clip we’ve gotten of Lance in the last three weeks since you’ve been in the pod. They’ve all been broadcasts, or stuff some members of the Voltron Alliance have uncovered.”

            Hunk had brought Keith up to speed while Pidge readied the clips—on Lance’s act, on the planets that fell under his strategy, on the bits and pieces of information Mirak—one of Tiva’s friends—had given before contact with her suddenly stopped.

            “I gotta warn you, all of us were pretty shaken by everything I’m about to show you. If we didn’t like it…you’re gonna like it even less.”

            Keith clenched and unclenched his fists as he stared at the screen, as Pidge leaned over and started the first of the clips.

            “This was two weeks ago,” Pidge said quietly, “shortly after our last contact with Mirak.”

            The clip opened with a shot of the arena, Lotor’s voice booming around the emptiness, addressing his _glorious_ empire, speaking of another traitor caught.

            _“Today, my second-in-command, my_ betrothed _, Jeremy Ortega, will be the one to rid this world of such filth!_ _”_

            Keith’s breath caught in the back of his throat.

_Betrothed._

_Lance, what the_ hell _are you_ doing _?_

            Keith watched the two guards drag out the prisoner in question.

            “That’s Mirak,” Hunk pointed out. “We were in the middle of a transmission, and she thought someone might have caught her. Turns out, it was Lotor himself.”

            _No._

            Someone grabbed Keith’s shoulder, and if he’d been paying closer attention, he probably could’ve deduced who from touch alone. But he was too fixated on the screen in front of him, on the person who stalked into the arena a few feet behind the prisoner and guards.

            As it was a broadcast, the cameras had focused in on Lance, his full figure just barely fitting into the frame. Keith’s eyes landed on Lance’s left hand, where a gold band studded with reddish gems stood out on his ring finger. Something cold pooled in Keith’s stomach at the sight of it, and a sensation almost like vertigo overtook him; for a few moments, his vision blurred, and ears rang.

            “Keith?”

            Another hand on his other shoulder.

            Keith blinked, rubbed at his eyes, braced one hand against the edge of the table.

_Don_ _’t do this._

            Keith carefully watched Lance’s every move, as he approached the rack of weapons that had been dragged into the arena, as he hesitated before selecting a rifle.

            “No,” Keith whispered, and leaned forward. “Please, Lance—”

            The hands fell away from his shoulders as Keith bent over the screen.

            He expected Lance to pull some stunt at the last minute, something that would free the prisoner but inevitably get himself captured, because that was the kind of selfless asshole Lance _was_. That must’ve been why there were other recordings—Lotor making an example of him.

            But that didn’t happen.

            Lance leveled the gun at Mirak, while Keith’s heart climbed into his throat. For the briefest second, Lance hesitated. Keith could’ve sworn Mirak’s mouth was moving, could’ve sworn Lance gave her a tiny nod, before he shot her right in the head.

            Keith recoiled so violently he nearly fell out of his chair.

            Coran, Allura, and Hunk all scrambled to keep his chair upright, but Keith was already dragging himself forward, to watch the rest of the clip play out. He watched Lance turn to the crowd, while Mirak’s body hit the ground. He raised his hands in victory, but his face remained stony.

            “What did he do to you…?”

            Keith’s heart hammered painfully against his chest as Lotor descended from the dais he stood on, walked all the way to Lance’s side. Intertwined their fingers and raised Lance’s hand higher, and then swept him in for a kiss Lance reciprocated.

            “Pidge,” Shiro said, “cut—”

            “No,” Keith interrupted, eyes still glued to the screen.

            Lance and Lotor pulled apart, and Keith analyzed Lance for something, _anything_.

            Nothing.

            The clip ended with the announcement of a marriage coming soon—planned for within the next week.

            _This was two weeks ago._

            The screen went dark, and Keith ended up staring at his own reflection, face wan, eyes wide.

            _Two weeks ago._

_One week to the wedding._

            “He didn’t.”

            Keith hardly heard himself, and the disbelieving words that came out of his mouth. Nobody said anything, and the blood roared in Keith’s ears as he whirled on the rest of the team.

            “Tell me he didn’t!”

            His voice cracked, but didn’t break. Not yet. Keith swallowed hard and steeled his gaze, set his jaw, as Pidge pulled her laptop closer to her and readied the next clip, biting her lip the whole way through.

            “Keith,” Shiro said, and Keith knew.

            He’d broken out the Dad Voice, one of a father trying to let a child down gently.

            Keith turned back toward Pidge’s laptop, blood turning to fire in his veins. He crossed his arms, and dug his fingers into his jacket sleeves as he took in the backdrop of the new clip, a room with architecture eerily reminiscent to pictures Keith had seen of ancient Greek temples. Behind Keith, Coran hissed at the sight, confirming the worst.

            The shot panned, then, toward three people.

            A druid.

            Lotor.

            And Lance.

            Lance and Lotor clasped hands, while the druid stood behind them, and uttered phrases that Keith guessed were in Galran—maybe some kind of spell, maybe just a normal rite—that sent shivers down his spine. It didn’t help that the druid’s hands glowed and swirled with magenta light.

            “No. Get out of there,” Keith whispered, voice shaking.

            He blinked, and something wet dropped from his eye.

            The druid stepped closer to Lance and Lotor, and the screen suddenly flashed pink and then white. When the light cleared, Lance and Lotor both glowed faintly, until the glow faded away, and the druid finished chanting with a nod to the two of them. Lotor was the one who pulled Lance in, but Lance made no move to fight him off.

            “No. No! WHY?”

            The clip ended, and Keith spun around again, to face the others.

            “WHY DIDN’T YOU GO AFTER HIM?” he shouted. “HE JUST—YOU _LET THAT HAPPEN?!_ ”

            “We didn’t have a choice,” Shiro said, and his voice had gone hard. Keith turned to him, and momentarily, Shiro’s features softened; Keith’s eyes, red-rimmed, gleamed with unshed tears.

            “What the _fuck_ do you mean—”

            “We were under nonstop attack,” Shiro interrupted, and Keith quieted, but remained rigid. “You were in the pod, and if something went wrong with the healing…we couldn’t let that happen. It was supposed to take two weeks to get you out of there, but one of the attacks…they nearly breached the castle. Every system went down. Including the pods.”

            _Supposed to take two weeks._

            Keith’s fingers dug harder into his jacket.

_We could_ _’ve been there._

_We could_ _’ve rescued him._

            “We knew we’d need every resource we have to get to Central Command and rescue Lance,” Shiro went on. “We needed _you_ out of the pods. None of us were comfortable with the idea of you being in there when we attacked, because if we _lost,_ and the Galra got control of the castle, you would’ve been at _their_ mercy. We’ve been biding our time and calling our allies, when we haven't been fighting.”

            “You should’ve gone after him anyway,” Keith said, voice low as he ducked his head. “He’s been suffering for almost _two months_ at Lotor’s hands—”

            “We know,” Shiro interrupted.

            Keith’s head snapped up. “Do you?”

            He paused. Shiro paused.

            “Fuck,” Keith whispered, and then shoved out of his chair. “I’m sorry, I—”

            “Keith—”

            “No,” Keith said, and held up both hands, wards against the others as he took steps back, and then turned and bolted out of the dining room.

            “We didn’t even show him all of the clips,” Pidge said quietly, after about a minute of silence had passed.

            “We can show them to him later,” Shiro said, staring at the doorway that Keith had just run out of. “For now, we need to prepare a course of action. In a little bit, I’ll see if I can get Keith to open up. In the meantime, Coran, can you get everyone else gathered in the conference room?”

            Coran nodded and headed briskly out of the room.

            “I knew he’d lash out,” Hunk remarked, bitterness lacing his words.

            “What else were we supposed to do?” Pidge asked. “He needed to know. And we can’t just plan a rescue _without_ him knowing. What, were we just gonna sedate him until after the whole thing was over?”

            “He’ll come around,” Shiro said, in a voice that said to put the argument to rest. “Like I said, I’ll talk to him. He hasn’t even told us what he’s been through—it’s probably eating at him.”

            Allura frowned at the mention of Keith’s experiences over the month he’d been away.

            “He’s been through more than he’s letting on,” she said quietly. “He didn’t tell Tiva everything.”

            Allura bit her lip, and then walked out of the room without another word, shoulders rolled back. Shiro, Hunk, and Pidge watched her go, and then Shiro followed, leaving Hunk and Pidge alone.

            “Good thing we didn’t show him the security footage,” Pidge muttered, slumping down in her chair. “I think…we don’t need to show him that.”

            “We do,” Hunk said, shaking his head. “You said it yourself. He deserves to know everything that happened.”

            “Dude, he already wants Lotor dead. We don’t need—”

            “We’re going to show him.”

            Hunk stared Pidge down, practically daring her to challenge him. Pidge stared back, until she finally cracked under his gaze and turned toward her computer, swearing under her breath as she lined up the clips that still needed showing.

            “Yeah, he needs to know, but this is like adding insult to injury.”

            “He needs to know _exactly_ what Lotor’s put Lance through. He can’t help Lance recover otherwise. And it doesn’t feel right to keep him in the dark like this.”

            Pidge sighed. “I hate when you have a valid point.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)))))))
> 
> the next chapter continues keith and team voltron, and includes a broganes scene i've had in my head for a while. love me some supportive brothers. 
> 
> IN THE MEANTIME, if you need some other fanfics to tide you over to the next update  
> -[squad up](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12199533/chapters/27702090), a modern au chatfic, is currently on its 107th chapter  
> -[does any actual learning go on in this facility](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13828377/chapters/31803057) is a collection of cutesy klance snippets that take place throughout squad up, although you don't need to read squad up to understand. this is perfect for a quick fix of the klance i'm starving all of you of ;)  
> -[artist and canvas](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13870785) is the first in a series of 26 oneshots based off of a prompt, one for each letter of the alphabet. this one takes place during chapter 67 of squad up, in which lance is in the school play, keith is in crew, and lance can do makeup.
> 
> see y'all in the next chapter ;)


	27. The One in Which Keith Snaps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For all his bad experiences there, it's a wonder Keith keeps returning to the training deck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lololololol i wanted this out sooner but of course, i get to the scene i've been waiting for CHAPTERS to write with keith and shiro, and my brain gets stuck on it for like, two weeks
> 
> BUT NOW IT'S HERE
> 
> **Trigger warning for violence, mildly suicidal thoughts, PTSD flashback, friend-on-friend violence, guilt, and mild hopelessness.**

Chapter 27

            Old habits died hard, and that was how Shiro found Keith.

            Shiro had suspected the training deck anyway, but had his hunch confirmed when he heard the sounds of grunting and yelling echoing through the halls. Distantly, Shiro wondered if the team’s allies aboard the ship could hear Keith, and wondered what they made of the sounds, but then tuned that thought out.

            _Not important._

            Shiro opened the door to the training deck, and Keith’s shouting amplified. Shiro lingered in the doorway, watching Keith go at two bots with his Marmora blade. He cut clean through the first one, and then spun and stabbed the second before the second could make a move of its own. Both bots dissolved, and three more dropped from the ceiling, all converging on Keith at once. Keith ducked and swept his legs underneath one, while he stabbed another at the same time.

            The third bot whacked Keith in the back and sent him sprawling.

            Keith grunted and rolled onto his back, and then stabbed upward when the bot pounced. The three bots dissolved, and down came three more, from separate corners of the room, each one practically begging Keith to attack. Keith growled and rocketed to his feet, and charged one.

            The other two charged Keith while his back was turned, while another two dropped from the ceiling to join the melee. The first bot read his attack and dodged, and then swept Keith’s legs with a bo staff. Keith cried out and dropped, and three of the bots bore down at once. Shiro stepped forward, GalraTech hand flaring up. He expected Keith to realize he was outmatched and call off the training sequence, but that didn’t happen.

            Keith kicked up and knocked the head clean off of one bot, and grabbed viciously at the leg of another, and used that bot as a bat to bring down the last one. He staggered to his feet just in time to parry a strike from one of the advancing bots, but the second of the bots got him from behind and delivered a hard stab to his side.

            “Shit!”

            Keith dropped his blade in his shock, and resorted to throwing an elbow at the bot behind him. The one in front of him seized the advantage and struck Keith in the chest. Keith gasped and went down again. Even as he did, one hand scrabbled for his fallen sword, and his fingers closed around the hilt to deflect another attack when Shiro’d finally had enough.

            “End training sequence!” Shiro called, and jogged to Keith’s location.

            “No!” Keith shouted. “Continue training sequence!”

            The bots, halfway through fizzling out, rematerialized in place as Keith got to his feet, sword clutched tightly in his hand.

            “Shiro, _go away._ ”

            Keith swung hard and cut through one of the bots, and then kicked the torso halfway across the room. Shiro took a step back as the torso missed him by several inches. As soon as the bots dissolved, another three dropped from the ceiling. Keith engaged one, and kept another in his periphery. Shiro tangoed with the third one in an effort to keep it away from Keith.

            “No,” Shiro said, and stabbed the bot through the chest with his hand. “Fighting the training bots—”

            “I said go away!”

            Keith decapitated one bot and carried his swing all the way through, hacking partway into the side of the bot he’d been keeping tabs on. The bot grabbed at Keith’s blade and yanked it out of its side, and Keith tugged back. The bot had the upper hand, and on the next pull, Keith lost his grip and stumbled backwards. The bot seized the opportunity, and the butt of Keith’s blade flew at his face.

            “End training sequence!” Shiro called again, and the bot stilled, Keith’s sword not even an inch from his face. Keith growled in the back of his throat as he glared in Shiro’s direction.

            “Continue training sequence!”

            “End training sequence!”

            “Cont—”

            “ _End training sequence!_ ”

            “ _Start training level twenty-seven!_ ”

            Keith ripped his sword out of the bot’s grip as the bot dematerialized, and then five bots dropped from the ceiling at once. Two charged Keith immediately. Keith ducked under blows from both of them and sliced through the first one’s legs, and then came up behind the other one and stabbed through with his sword. Meanwhile, the other three converged on him like Shiro wasn’t just _standing there,_ easy pickings, staring.

            It took one hit for Keith’s defenses to unravel, a blow to the head that had him on the floor for just a tad longer than it should’ve. Keith tried to pick himself up, and ended up deflecting three blows before he could find a way to knock down a bot and create an opening for himself. He screamed the whole way through, not unlike a banshee. His form turned sloppy—the hit to the head turned into another hit to the back, and then a blow to the side, and then Keith’s blade getting knocked across the room.

            “End training sequence!” Shiro shouted, snapping out of his stupor when it became very clear Keith couldn’t win this fight.

            “ _Continue training—_ ”

            “End training sequence, end training sequence, end training sequence—!”

            “No! _Let me do this!_ Shiro— _stop_ —you _fucking asshole_ —!”

            Shiro moved in as the bots fizzled out, and grabbed Keith around the torso from behind, pinning Keith’s arms to his sides. Keith struggled and strained against him, swearing up a storm.

            “Keith, stop,” Shiro said, and tried to make his voice as even as possible.

            “No, I can do this, I _can_ _’t defend myself if you don’t let me_ —”

            Keith thrashed against Shiro, and Shiro ignored Keith’s several attempts to kick him in the knees.

            “Keith,” Shiro repeated, and for a moment wasn’t seeing the Red Paladin. He saw the small, angry boy from the Garrison, snubbing instructors, retreating from other students, snapping at the few who dared to try and come near. “Please, stop fighting me. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

            Keith tried to shove forward.

            “No! Let me go! I _have_ to keep training! I can’t slip again, I have to be better…”

            The dam burst.

            Keith suddenly slumped against Shiro, body shaking as his words devolved into frantic muttering. Shiro guided them both down to the floor, until they were both kneeling, and a sob wrenched itself free from Keith. And then another. And another. Before long, Keith was full-blown crying.

            “I-I couldn’t—I wasn’t st-strong enough…I shouldn’t be h-here, I should be dead, I sh-shouldn’t ha-have survived…”

            “Don’t say that,” Shiro gasped. “Keith—”

            “ _You don_ _’t know what I went through!_ ”

            Shiro didn’t expect Keith to try and escape his grasp again, but Keith did. He pitched forward and hit the floor on his hands and knees, choking on another sob. Shiro tried to put a hand on his shoulder, but Keith dodged away from him, furiously scrubbing a hand over his eyes.

            “Don’t touch me,” Keith said, and then dropped his voice and added, “p-please, _don_ _’t_.”

            Keith stayed bent over for a while, until he sat back, drew his knees up to his chest, and curled over himself. Shiro hesitantly scooted over and sat down next to him, just far enough apart that he wasn’t touching Keith in any way, shape, or form. They sat in silence for a long time—Keith angrily trying to calm himself, and Shiro looking on helplessly.

            “I’m sorry,” Keith finally croaked. “You—you’ve gone through worse. You—”

            “Doesn’t matter,” Shiro interrupted. “You still went through a nightmare, I know that much. …Do you want to talk about it?”

            Keith considered the question for a minute, and then shook his head. He tried to form words, to explain _why_ he couldn’t just spill everything that had happened to him, but another lump lodged itself painfully in his throat.

            “If you won’t talk, will you at least listen?” Shiro asked.

            Hesitation, and then a nod.

            Shiro’s next words rose to his lips and froze. Momentarily, he considered not telling Keith, but Keith would have to find out eventually.

            “Tiva already told us what happened.”

            He winced as Keith whipped around, hands fumbling for a blade he didn’t have. His eyes were wide, bright and wet and feral. His lips pulled back into a snarl.

            “She _what?_ ”

            Keith’s fist curled. Shiro eyed it warily—any more provocation, and Keith might’ve actually taken a swing.

            “She didn’t tell us everything,” Shiro said, raising his hands defensively. “Allura told us—”

            “ _Allura? Allura_ said something?”

            Keith’s voice shook. His eyes were far away, body tightening with tension the longer his silence went on. Shiro reached out, and faltered when Keith jerked away from him, snapping back to reality with a level of viciousness Shiro hadn’t seen in years. He stood up abruptly, hugging himself, digging fingers into his arms hard enough to tear through skin and draw blood. Then he started briskly for the exit.

            “Keith, she didn’t say what she saw,” Shiro called after him, when he was halfway to the door.

            Keith paused, but didn’t turn.

            “She just said Tiva didn’t tell us the full story. But she wouldn’t elaborate on it. She said it wasn’t right.”

            Shiro rose to his feet.

            “But I was the one who asked Tiva to tell us. She almost didn’t, but I told her we needed to know.”

* * *

             _I was the one who asked Tiva to tell us._

_Allura told us—_

_Tiva already told us what happend._

_But your loyalty still lies with Voltron, does it not?_

_I don_ _’t know._

_That was all decided by—the Black and Pink Paladins._

            _You don_ _’t trust Voltron._

Keith’s head spun. Several different impulses warred in his head, each one demanding he take its course of action, each one keeping him rooted to the spot. His hands fell away from his arms, down to his side, and he clenched and unclenched his fists, fingers digging into his palms and the heels of his hands.

            “Why?”

            Keith’s voice held, and it surprised him. Another sentence, maybe even another _word,_ though, would’ve had it breaking entirely. As it is, he was two seconds away from losing it again, two seconds away from shaking and probably sobbing and being an utter _wreck_. His shoulders were hunched, form rigid, jaw set as he waited for Shiro’s response about his invasion of Keith’s privacy—privacy he should’ve been clearly entitled to, being in a pod and unable to speak up for himself.

            “We needed to know so we could help you when you came out of the pod.”

            _Help._

            The word left a sour taste in Keith’s mouth.

            “I don’t need help,” Keith bit out. “Did you ever think about that?”

            Keith stalked toward the blade on the ground and roughly took it up, turned it over in his hands.

            “I never asked for help,” Keith went on. “Ever. I didn’t ask for _this._ I never asked for _anything,_ except for you to _leave me alone._ And you never learned!”

            Anger pulsed through Keith as he drew in ragged breaths, grip on the hilt of his blade becoming white-knuckled. His blood roared in his ears, and his vision swam. His heart pounded painfully against his chest, in his head, in his ears—a war drum thumping through every inch of him.

            “You want to help me?”

            Keith turned and twirled his blade, sheer bloodlust in his eyes. “Then _fight me_.”

* * *

            There must have been some disconnect between Shiro’s ears and his brain. His eyes and brain too, for that matter. He couldn’t possibly have heard Keith’s request right, couldn’t possibly have been properly seeing the person in front of him. Shiro stepped back when Keith stepped forward, and raised his hands to either side of his head in clear surrender.

            “Keith, I’m not going to fight you.”

            He sounded so sure of it, so sure he’d walk out of the training deck without having to engage Keith. Keith laughed bitterly, the fingers on his free hand twitching. Shiro swallowed and made himself look Keith in the eyes. A fire burned in them, so unlike the one that had burned there several years ago. Keith would have withdrawn, would have snapped and gone off, but wouldn’t have drawn a weapon like this.

            “What are you afraid of?” Keith demanded. “Afraid to hurt me? I’ve already _been hurt._ There’s nothing else you can do. Now fight me!”

            Shiro opened his mouth to protest and then closed it without saying a word. His eyes darted to the sides of the room in quick assessment, and in that little moment of distraction, Keith seized the opening and lunged. Shiro ducked and rolled to the side, eyes wide as he looked at Keith again.

            He’d come at him. He’d really come at him.

            That swing was nothing like the swings Keith would take when they sparred. No matter what, there had always been some level of hesitation, something Keith held back out of fear _he_ _’d_ hurt _Shiro._

            But not this time.

            Shiro moved as Keith came at him again. Keith growled in frustration as his blade missed its mark completely, and he stumbled over his own feet, his momentum carrying him too far. Shiro could’ve attacked in that moment. Could’ve attacked in the next, when Keith had to go into a roll to recover his balance and act like he wasn’t about to fall. But he didn’t.

            It would have been like kicking a dog when it was already down.

            “Oh, now you run!” Keith taunted, voice void of levity. “I finally ask you to do something for me and _now_ you choose to back off?! Is that it?!”

            “Keith, please,” Shiro said, voice wavering, and side-stepped another attack.

            Keith shrieked and charged again, and ended up on the ground. Shiro stood still, watching. Keith shot up to unsteady legs and whirled around, and Shiro recoiled at the tears streaking down Keith’s face.

            “Coward!” Keith yelled, and ran at Shiro again. Shiro tried to avoid this one, but Keith finally, _finally_ landed a blow that glanced off of Shiro’s arm—not enough to do lasting damage, but not enough to snap Keith from his rage, either. Shiro opened his mouth again, but this time, Keith cut him off: “You’re a fucking _coward,_ Shiro!”

            _“Only a coward runs!”_

 _Blood ran down Shiro_ _’s face: over his nose, into his mouth, down his neck. The cut on the bridge of his nose didn’t just sting but_ burned, _burned as salty tears found their way into the broken skin. He panted, leaning against a column, surrounded by screaming spectators._

_“Face me and fight!”_

_Every other prisoner who_ _’d gone against the Champion had lost. Sorely. Dearly. For the last time. If Shiro didn’t act soon, he’d face the same fate._

_Shiro_ _’s brief moment of peace was interrupted by something striking the column. A crack sounded, and Shiro threw himself out of the way as the top half of the column tumbled down, debris raining over the spot he’d just been standing in. Open, exposed, Shiro’s opponent lunged, Galra blade glinting—_

            He didn’t remember activating his arm.

            He didn’t remember aiming to strike Keith.

            Shiro snapped back to his senses when Keith forced back a scream and grunted, a sound that, after too many battles, Shiro recognized. Keith’s blade fell from his hand, and he rolled onto his back, cradling a wound on his arm. Incredulous laughter bubbled out of him, and when he moved his fingers, Shiro saw the ugly red burn.

            “K-Keith—”

            Keith sat up slowly, laughing, crying at the same time. Shiro took a hesitant step toward him, and when Keith didn’t flinch away, Shiro took another, and then another, until he was standing over Keith. He knelt down next to him, and Keith leaned forward and collapsed into his arms. The laughter dissolved, giving way to sobs, and it took everything in Shiro not to break down, too.

            “I’m sorry,” Shiro said brokenly. “I am so, _so sorry_.”

            _The Champion_ _’s blood splattered over Shiro as he drove the blade home. He let go of it and stared at where it sat, buried halfway to the hilt in his opponent’s chest, while his opponent drew in rattling breaths, and wheezed out laughs of disbelief._

_“Not so—cowardly a-af—after—”_

_More laughter, laughter that grated on Shiro_ _’s ears. Blood spilled over the sides of the Champion’s mouth, and the Champion choked, and choked…and then went silent, mouth smiling partly, eyes narrowed and staring up at nothing. Shiro shook, his hands most violently. Someone came to his side—a guard, maybe, he wasn’t sure, couldn’t process—_ I killed him, it’s over, I killed the Champion _—and took him by the wrist, and lifted his hand high above his head._

_“Behold!” the guard shouted. “The new reigning Champion!”_

_Arena fights after that blurred. Victory after victory, dead prisoner after dead prisoner. Each time, Shiro had to see their face as they passed on. Each time, he barely muttered an apology for the fights he deluded himself into thinking he had no control over._

_“Victory—Champion!”_

_Over._

_And over._

_And over._

* * *

            Pidge tasked Hunk with tracking down Keith to show him the rest of the clips later that afternoon, neither one aware of what had transpired on the training deck. Hunk roamed the castle halls in search of him. His room came up empty, and so had the dining room. The lounge only turned up a handful of the diplomats aboard the ship, all waiting for Allura to call their next meeting about the assault on Central Command, still in the planning stages.

            “I’m not getting in a pod. I don’t need it.”

            Hunk paused mid-step. He was somewhere between the training deck and the med bay, listening as footsteps drew closer, as voices grew louder. The one that just spoke was hoarse, and the one following wasn’t any better.

            “Are you sure?”

            Hunk retreated to a wall and leaned against it, as nonchalantly as possible, as two figures came walking down the hall. Keith, cradling an injury, and Shiro, hand on his shoulder, face drawn with worry. Hunk’s eyes flitted quickly over the injury—red-pink-white skin, raised and irritated—and then over the rest of Keith and Shiro. Both of them looked worse for wear, and then Hunk spotted the cut on Shiro’s arm, blood dry against his torn sleeve.

            He couldn’t look away fast enough.

            Keith stopped moving, hand tightening around his injury, even as he grimaced. Shiro glanced at his own injury, and then at Hunk, and realized how bad the situation must have looked.

            “Hey, Hunk,” Shiro greeted.

            A burn on Keith. A slash on Shiro’s arm. Both of them red-eyed, entirely disheveled, walking in the opposite direction of the training deck.

            Hunk put two and two together fairly quickly.

            “Touching a burn like that will infect it,” Hunk pointed out with a gesture to Keith’s arm, instead of greeting Shiro back, instead of asking what happened. “If you’re not going to stay in a pod, at least let me help you wrap that. And you too, Shiro. Come on—let’s get you guys cleaned up.”

            Keith and Shiro exchanged glances, Keith apprehensively letting go of his wound.

            Hunk led the way down to the med bay, Keith and Shiro following. When they entered a room off to the left of the pod room, a room with tables and chairs and medical supplies, Keith sat down on a table, while Shiro took up a chair close to him. Hunk, meanwhile, beelined right for the first aid kits. They were in a cabinet, one of many hanging above a sink and counter space full of other medical supplies.

            “Keith, come over here,” Hunk instructed, and Keith complied wordlessly.

            Hunk turned on the tap on the sink and stuck a finger underneath, until the water was cool but not ice cold.

            “Put your arm under there for a little while. It’ll probably sting—”

            “I’ve got it,” Keith interrupted quietly, and his eyes were hard and distant. Hunk nodded, and Keith stuck his arm underneath the water.

            “Shiro,” Hunk called, “come here. Let me see _your_ arm.”

            Shiro walked over slowly and stuck out his arm for Hunk. The cut was along his bicep, not deep enough to slice through muscle or anything important, but enough to cause a fair amount of bleeding. Hunk shook his head at the sight of it and reached for one of the cloths folded and stacked in the corner of the counter. He interrupted the flow of water over Keith’s injury for a minute, just to wet it down to clean up Shiro’s cut.

            “Should I ask what happened?” Hunk asked.

            Shiro and Keith glanced at each other again.

            “No—” Shiro began, only for Keith to cut him off.

            “I lashed out,” Keith replied. “I lost my temper. I…I attacked him. He was just defending himself.”

            Hunk didn’t freeze, didn’t stare in shock. Just kept cleaning Shiro’s wound, and when the blood was cleared as much as it possibly could have been, he widened the rip along his sleeve to properly apply a bandage. He nodded at what Keith said, face impassive.

            _He was just defending himself._

            Shiro knew how to fight well enough to incapacitate without turning to his GalraTech arm for defense. Keith had attacked him, and had set him off. That was the only explanation Hunk could think of.

            He looked at Keith again. His eyes were fixed on the water flowing over his burn.

            Shiro, too, seemed far away.

            Hunk resisted the urge to clench his fists, to slam everything down and storm out of here. He’d already snapped in front of the team, had scared the shit out of Pidge, had disturbed Keith right after he’d come out of the pod and seen the team for the first time in over a month.

            This team was fucking _breaking._ Lance and Keith’s capture, their separation, their torment at the hands of different enemies—all fractures, cracks converging on one another.

            One more rattle had the potential to do it, to shatter the thin calm, and when that day came…Hunk wasn’t sure the team could survive.

* * *

            “We can’t keep going on like this.”

            Allura turned at the sound of the bridge doors opening. Hunk trudged in, Pidge in reluctant tow. Two hours into the castle night cycle, and neither had changed into pajamas. Neither had Allura. They’d planned on calling a meeting with the anxious diplomats aboard, but it became clear that Keith and Shiro were in no shape to sit through talks all night.

            “I tried to talk to them,” Hunk went on. “After the med bay they just…left. I think Keith went to bed? Shiro definitely said _he_ was going to sleep, but he might’ve gone to see Black. I don’t know. But we can’t…we can’t sit around and wait for them anymore.”

            Hunk and Pidge joined Allura where she stood at the bridge windows. The bridge itself went dark when the night cycle began, and no one turned the lights here back on since.

            “So I take it Keith never opened up,” Allura said.

            Hunk shook his head as he faced the window and gazed out at the stars. “He…I don’t know what happened on the training deck. He still hasn’t said anything. Pretty sure he lashed out and sent Shiro into a flashback, but…he wouldn’t say it.”

            “Why would he want to?” Pidge replied.

            She, too, stared at the space beyond the window. Her arms were crossed. Hunk would’ve called her stance that of a battle-hardened soldier. He almost tried to say that it wasn’t the case—she was still just a teenage girl, after all—but then he realized: that was what all of them _were,_ plain and simple. Soldiers. Too many battles under their belts for their ages, and too many more lying ahead.

            “You remember Eddul, don’t you?”

            Pidge’s voice was softer this time. Hunk nodded, but Allura’s eyebrows knitted in confusion, and she turned to the two of them.

            “What of Eddul?” she asked.

            No authoritative edge. Hunk looked down at Pidge, and Pidge looked up at him, and decided it was unfair to keep Allura in the dark.

            “When we were on the mission to assassinate Haggar and Lotor,” Pidge started, “and Lance went after Lotor, he got knocked out by a bunch of Eddulan soldiers. The only reason he was rescued is because Keith went after him. According to Keith, there were three soldiers surrounding Lance. He…”

            Pidge trailed off, frowned.

            “He killed all three of them,” Hunk continued for her. “He said he did it in cold blood, but it was a drive to protect Lance, and I can’t fault him for that. He said he enjoyed it, but…I think it was an adrenaline high. I don’t know. He’s…he didn’t want to admit it. He was pretty torn up about it when he did.”

            Allura pursed her lips, and then slowly began nodding.

            “That…makes sense, now.”

            Pidge furrowed her brow. “What does?”

            Allura hesitated.

            “May as well tell them.”

            The trio at the window turned, panic briefly flashing through all three of them at the sight of Keith entering the bridge. His hair stuck up at strange angles, undoubtedly bedhead. His shoulders were bunched, and he pulled a jacket tighter about him. No one recognized it, at first—it wasn’t his typical red one. But then Hunk studied it further, and inhaled sharply.

            Lance’s jacket.

            The jacket dwarfed Keith’s malnourished frame. It slipped down to near his elbows, exposing the bandage around his burn.

            “Keith—” Allura started, but Keith held up a hand.

            “The team needs to know.”

            “What are you doing up?” Hunk asked.

            Keith raised his eyebrows and swept an arm out at the three of them. “I could ask the same.”

            “Keith, seriously,” Pidge said, as Keith joined them at the window. “What’s going on?”

            Keith didn’t answer right away. He pressed a palm against the glass of the window, and then his forehead. He took in a deep breath, and when his eyes opened, his fingers curled, trailing down the glass.

            “I can’t sleep. I…I’ve…I need to get this off my chest. I… _fuck,_ you need to know what happened. It’s not fair to make Allura stay quiet, it’s not fair to shut everyone out, it’s…”

            Hunk put a hand on his shoulder. “Take your time, dude. You want us to go get Shiro?”

            “No need.”

            Shiro entered the bridge on near-silent feet, and Pidge groaned. “Can everyone stop making dramatic entrances? I’ve about had it with the drama.”

            “Sorry,” Shiro said.

            He came up to the group, slipped an arm around Allura’s waist, put a hand on Keith’s shoulder. Keith didn’t smile, but some of the tension eased away.

            “You guys deserve to know what happened,” Keith said, voice low. “Everything.”

            And then he began his story, starting all the way back on Tarvin Three with his capture—Lance being knocked unconscious and being ordered to Central Command, while the Chancellor’s daughter used Keith as a bargaining chip in an alliance with the Empire. Continuing with his breakout on Ven, with the trucker he’d killed and the vehicle he’d stolen and accidentally destroyed. Keith spared no detail—not in his shooting, not in his dive off a cliffside, not in being attacked by Stets and rescued by Luce and then betrayed.

            The lab. The breakout. Ruovi. Tiva. The interrogation. The escape.

            The fight.

            His breakdown.

            Through it all, he described the growing cloud of hopelessness over his head, and by the time he finished off his story, with falling out of the cryopod, with his fight with Shiro on the training deck—holding up his arm in all its bandaged glory—there was not a single dry eye on the bridge.

            “I’m sorry,” Keith whispered at the end of it all.

            He’d stopped trying to hide his tears the first moment one broke free. His face was a flood, tears streaking down his cheeks, and he made no move to wipe them away.

            “I wanted to be better, I…I didn’t want to go back there…I…”

            “Keith? Shut up,” Pidge interrupted, and flung her arms around his waist and buried her face in his shirt. The others followed suit, until Keith stood, sobbing, at the center of a group hug.

            Nobody spoke up again until everyone parted. It was Shiro, weary smile on his face.

            “You got through it, Keith,” he said. His voice was a whisper, and dangerously close to cracking. “That’s the thing. You did what you had to do to survive, and you’ve come out on the other side of it. That’s all we could have asked for. We—we’re a family. We’ll be here for you, always.”

            Keith swallowed hard.

            “Thanks, Shiro…but we’re not done yet. This isn’t over. I’m…I’m not the only one who’s suffered.”

            Keith leveled eyes at Hunk, and Hunk met his gaze straight-on. Keith nodded to him, a go-ahead to speak, and Hunk cleared his throat to grab the others’ attention. He waited a heartbeat, for every eye to fall on him.

            “We’ve got Keith back,” Hunk said. “That’s reason to celebrate, yeah. But Lance is still out there.” He glanced at the windows again; Central Command lay somewhere in the distance. Lotor and his army, and Lance. Still advancing on planets, seizing what they could, taking lives. “We’ve got to mobilize. Those attacks by Lotor were deliberate. He _knows_ we rescued Keith. He’s waiting for us to strike back. Sooner or later, he’s going to get bored of waiting and bait us into a confrontation. _We_ need to be the ones to get the jump on _him_.”

            The others nodded, glancing at each other. Hands grabbing hands and holding tight. Weak smiles.

            “Fuck sleep,” Keith said, Pidge leaning against him, Hunk at his other side. Pidge raised her head, while the others’ eyes widened.

            Shiro couldn’t help the smile tugging at his lips.

            “I should’ve cooperated sooner.”

            This time, Keith _did_ scrub a hand over his face, drying the tears, blinking the rest out of his eyes.

            “If I’d cooperated, we could be moving already. I say we start planning now.”

            He looked to Hunk, to Pidge, to Allura and Shiro.

            “He’s right,” Allura said. “We’ve got allies in the castle who have been waiting for quintants for us to make a move. Everyone, get to the meeting room. Immediately. There’s much to be done and not a lot of time to do it.”

            She met gazes with Keith, solidarity passing between them.

            “You heard the princess,” Keith said with a glance to the others. “Let’s move.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "we're finally getting back to the plot!" i say to myself, as if the last several chapters haven't been chugging the plot along
> 
> so...what happens when an several unstable and angry paladins with a thirst for vengeance try to be diplomatic when trying to form a rescue plan with allies who don't have the same deeply personal attachments to their kidnapped teammate? guess we'll find out next chapter (unless i switch up and we're back with lance...still haven't decided tbh)
> 
> ANYWAY see y'all in the next chapter...hopefully soon ;)


	28. The One in Which Connections are Re-established

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The line Lance walks is razor-thin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> huehuehuehue
> 
>  
> 
> **trigger warning for mild descriptions of death/murder, descriptions of drowning, and minor character death**

Chapter 28

            _Just a little longer._

            Lance made the same promise to himself every day since agreeing to Lotor’s terms, since executing the Marmorite in the arena, since _marrying Lotor._ He still came close to throwing up every time he thought about it, thought about the ceremony. Officially, the druid had united Jeremy Ortega and Emperor Lotor of the Galra Empire. Some kind of magical bond was supposed to be established during the ceremony, something to link him and Lotor for life.

            Lance couldn’t feel it.

            Was it because the name _Lance McClain_ was never uttered? Was it because he hadn’t wanted it? Lance couldn’t be sure. Either way, Lotor had been angry after the ceremony, to say the least. He’d been concentrating for a few seconds, and then more than a few seconds, and then he snapped, whirling on Lance, demanding to know why it _wasn_ _’t working._

            As if Lance had an answer for that.

            “It doesn’t matter,” Lotor had said minutes later, decidedly calmer. “In the eyes of the public, we’re married. As far as _I_ _’m concerned,_ we’re married. If you so much as _insinuate_ otherwise…”

            _Then Earth gets it._

            He didn’t need to say it. Lance understood perfectly. The threat hanging over his home planet was the reason he hadn’t escaped, the reason he hadn’t tried contacting the team, even though Lotor now gave him the freedom to roam Central Command on his own, with a sword for his own protection—a sword, because Lance might’ve been able to gut an officer or a soldier with it no problem, but not Lotor himself.

            The one room off-limits was the training deck. He could only go there under Lotor’s supervision. Lance supposed it was because of all the weapons the training deck held; once he got his hands on a gun, it would all be over. Besides—it wasn’t like Lance could open that door on his own.

            Lotor ordered most of the doors on Central Command rewired to answer to Lance’s touch, but not the training deck.

            _Doesn_ _’t matter._

            It had been a week since the wedding ceremony, a ceremony that had been broadcast live to the nearby galaxies, and spread throughout the universe. Since then, Lance spent most of his free time roaming Central Command. Officers mostly kept away from him after they’d heard of the massacre Lance had committed, the one that led to Lotor’s discovery of his treachery. Kept away from him after he’d murdered someone he was supposed to be allied with. Lance’s hope of making friends and staging a coup dwindled to nothing, but _no matter._

            The place was mostly mapped in his head. Lance took note of which rooms had vents, how long it took to get to them from his bedroom, how long he could spend by himself before Lotor typically went looking for him. He took special notice of the security cameras along his path—which ones would be easy to disable, which ones would have little mind paid to them.

            He changed his route almost daily, no discernible rhyme or reason to it, and walked around the base on his own at least twice a day. Walking was a good distraction, he found, now that Lotor had granted him this freedom. Better than sitting in his room. Better than wondering if the team would ever come after him, or if they’d left him behind for good, thoroughly disgusted with his actions. He supposed by now, word should have reached them of his execution of the Marmorite whose name he’d never learned. Maybe they’d heard of the other prisoners he executed in the cells at Lotor’s command.

            _I_ _’ve grown bored of this one. Kill them._

_This one would go too easily in the arena. No fun there. End them._

_I don_ _’t like this one. Kill them._

_Do as I say, or I kill everyone on Earth with a single order._

            Every prisoner knew who he was. Those who’d heard of the Blue Paladin being aboard Central Command had rapidly lost their faith in him, and any hope that he’d be able to help them, be able to stage a prison break, be able to overthrow the emperor. If their enthusiasm hadn’t been crushed after the month where Lance did nothing but follow Lotor around obediently, keeping up his charade, then it was crushed the moment he set foot in the cells and slit a prisoner’s throat.

            Slowly.

            While the prisoner screamed, and thrashed, and spat every curse they could think of in every tongue they could think of, until they were dead.

            Lance wanted a quick execution for that one and the ones that followed, but Lotor hadn’t allowed it. He’d had his communicator ready, and at the first sign of insubordination from Lance, he would have ordered ships to Earth. Immediately.

            _I_ _’m sorry,_ Lance wanted to say to every person he killed.

            It was a handful of lives, or billions. It wasn’t Lance’s call to make, but he made it anyway, and here he was: exploring the halls of Central Command all by himself, officers shying away from him when he came too close.

            _You have guns, training, and the jump on me,_ Lance thought every time an officer looked away, or turned in the other direction. _You could kill me so easily._

            But they didn’t.

            Lance turned a corner. This hall was empty of officers; Lance sheathed his sword.

            He’d been down this hall before, a few days ago. This hall was full of labs and storage rooms, most in disuse and forgotten about. One of the rooms he’d been in had an air duct over a stack of crates—easy to get in and out of without hurting himself. If he followed the ducts properly, he’d be at the hangar in no time.

            Lance found the door he was looking for, and it opened under his touch. He entered the room with a glance over his shoulder at the security camera monitoring the hall. Hopefully Lotor was too busy to go looking for him for the next few hours, because Lance had no one he could ask to hack the feed and destroy it, or replace it with something else.

            _You can do this._

            The door fell shut with a clang. The room was cramped; the stack of crates took up the wall at Lance’s right, while metal shelves occupied those in front of Lance and to his left, leaving little standing room. A single light strip illuminated the space in pink, and Lance wished for a brighter color. Pink made it just a little bit harder to see.

            _No time to think about that. Get moving._

            Lance climbed the stack of crates carefully, pulling himself up on uneven edges. He grit his teeth when his foot slipped halfway up, and the crates teetered. He ceased movement and held his breath, until the crates stopped wobbling.

            _Stay stable for just a few more feet, would ya?_

            Lance continued the rest of the way up. The space between the top of the stack and the ceiling was small, and he could hardly squeeze himself in, let alone remove the grate to the vents. He set the grate down and maneuvered until he was beneath the opening, and then crawled inside.

            The space in the vents was bigger. Lance stretched out and let himself breathe, let himself take a moment to think about his next moves.

            He should’ve had the path to the hangar memorized. If he moved at a decent pace, he’d be there in less than ten minutes. The problem there would be getting out of the vents, dodging the security cameras, and getting back in again—unless Blue or Red somehow, miraculously, opened up for him.

            They still hadn’t responded since shutting him out, a thought that hurt more than Lance cared to admit. The bond between a Paladin and their Lion was supposed to be special, sacred, and Blue and Red had tossed him out like he hadn’t even _mattered._ Every battle they’d been through, every close call they’d dodged together…had it meant nothing?

            _Not the time, Lance._

            _Move._

            Lance shoved down his frustrations and crawled, sheathed sword scraping against the bottom of the vents from where it dangled at his waist. His procession was slower than he would’ve liked as he kept an ear out for sounds below the vent, for other grates. The grates were tougher to get around, especially those that hung above a hallway filled with soldiers.

            Lance paused just before one, eyes narrowed as he peered down.

            “—gunning for the Castle of Lions.”

            “Who’d they send?”

            “Commander Varx, I think?”

            A low whistle, then: “That’ll be one hell of a victory for us.”

            If they hadn’t mentioned the Castle of Lions, Lance would’ve spent a lot more time contemplating who the hell Commander Varx was. Instead, though, he focused more on the fact that the castle—the _team_ —would be under attack. His legs turned to jelly, and for a moment, Lance couldn’t move.

            “How soon till they arrive?”

            “They left about a varga ago. I think they’ve got a quintant or two. Word has it that Varx wants to try a different tactic than attacking outright.”

            _Two days. Move. You can_ _’t waste time._

_Move, Lance._

_Come on._

            _This is your chance._

* * *

            Lance wasn’t in his room when Lotor arrived.

            He expected this, of course. Yes, he did find himself a little miffed when he knocked and received no response, and then when he entered and discovered both bathrooms wide open and empty. No note left to tell Lotor where he’d wandered off to. Just…empty.

            He hadn’t escaped the base yet, that was for certain. Lotor would know if the hangar containing those two Lions had opened—the whole base would know the moment the alarm went off. From there, procedure would be simple: apprehend the Lion, apprehend Lance, and tell his troops stationed in the Milky Way to move in and open fire on Earth.

            Lotor left Lance’s room with his head high and gait casually swaggering, as per the usual. He strolled through Central Command, eyes peeled for any sign of Lance. Surely he wasn’t ignorant enough to go ahead and try and pull off an escape? He _wouldn_ _’t_ —he was _just_ slightly more intelligent than that. Maybe the _Red Paladin_ would have tried something like that, but _Lance_ was considerably more careful in his actions.

            As it was, he’d pulled the wool over Lotor’s eyes twice, a feat Lotor would never admit publicly—

            _Wait._

 _Where_ is _he?_

            He’d fooled Lotor twice, yes. He’d had no qualms about doing so on either occasion, which indicated that he’d take no issue in doing so a _third_ time, as long as his own ends were met. In that case, that meant as long as his precious home planet was spared. So who was to say he wasn’t sneaking around right _now?_

Perhaps letting the Blue Paladin have free roam of Central Command was a worse idea than he thought…and he’d been on the loose for a _week now—_

            Lotor activated his communicator cuff, a direct link to whoever was in charge now on the bridge—he was losing track, after so many betrayals.

            “It appears I cannot find my husband anywhere,” Lotor began, as dismayed-sounding as he could make himself. “I’ve searched this base up and down. Please, if someone could find my dear Jeremy and bring him to my chambers, that would be wonderful. If he’s not found within the next half a varga, assume the worst and ring the alarm.”

            The worst. For his soldiers, that was code for a kidnapping, code for someone, somehow, breaching base security and managing to get to the Blue Paladin. Not Voltron—they would detect a Voltron Lion long before it ever reached the base. A rebel group, maybe. Either way, his soldiers thought _the worst_ meant Lance was gone, and not on his own will.

            Only Lotor and a handful of druids knew better. _The worst_ meant that Lance had bested them yet again.

            For the last time.

* * *

            Finding Blue and Red’s hangar was about as easy as Lance imagined it to be—the difficult part would be getting in and out, unseen by the soldiers posted next to them. Their energy fields were both raised, blazing bright, and a few soldiers poked at them. Neither shield would fall, and it dawned on Lance then that if he got through to one of them, the shield would go down.

            His cover would be blown.

            Or maybe not.

            _Red, Blue, can either of you hear me?_

            Being this close, Lance could feel their energies. At one time it was comforting, something Lance would’ve loved to wrap himself in like a blanket. Now the energies overwhelmed him, something he hadn’t felt in full force in a long time—and still wasn’t feeling. Red and Blue were still holding back on him, and the crack in Lance’s heart lengthened.

            _I_ _’m sorry,_ Lance tried, blood running cold. _I_ _’m so sorry._

 _I know I screwed up. I wasn_ _’t thinking. I should’ve fought back. And I’m sorry._

            A heartbeat, and then another…and no answer.

            _Please._

            The energies were still _there._ Lance felt as though he could just _reach out_ and touch—

            _That_ _’s it._

            Lance leaned back against the wall of the vent and drew his knees up, in as comfortable of a sitting position as he was going to get in here. He rolled his shoulders once, twice. Some of the tension fell away, and _some_ was good enough for Lance. He shut his eyes and pressed his palms against the bottom of the vent, metal cool beneath them.

            _Blue, Red, I know you_ _’re there._

            Lance hadn’t connected with his mindscape since he was training with Allura that day, and he’d admit, getting in there was a lot easier when he had someone else forcing him into action, be it Allura or Haggar. It was harder than connecting to the others to form Voltron, harder than connecting to Blue or Red when he was piloting, and even harder now, given the fact that they didn’t seem too inclined to help him.

            He still tried anyway.

            He evened his breathing out, even as his pulse raced. Imagined himself taking a deep dive into an ocean, disturbing still water. The deeper he went, the brighter it became, glowing blue and red strands of seagrass greeting him as he descended. Every time he got within reach of the grass, however, his fingers just skimmed the top of it, before it inexplicably drew back. Lance frowned, narrowed his eyes, kept swimming.

            Whispers rose up, each one causing a stab of physical pain somewhere along Lance’s torso.

            _Coward. Weak. Fool. Puppet. Traitor. Unworthy. Mistake._

            Lance pretended that the stinging in his eyes was the seawater as he swam harder, kicked his legs more forcefully, swiped at the tips of the grass and tried to get a hold, over and over again. His chest burned with the desire to breathe, while the pressure on his whole body intensified the further down he went.

            _Please._

            Lance lost track of how long he’d been under the water. Seconds? Minutes?

            He screwed his eyes shut for a moment, just a moment, and willed himself not to open his mouth or inhale through his nose. Trusted himself to keep pushing on, to keep moving in the right direction.

            Trusted Blue and Red to get him there, something he’d not _neglected,_ but outright _rejected_ in the last month.

            _I_ _’m sorry._

 _I_ _’m sorry._

 _I_ _’m sorry._

            The pressure on his chest turned crushing. Lance kicked out again, reached forward again, grass evading him still. He opened his eyes, ignoring the stinging, ignoring the dark spots getting in his way. Another kick, weaker than the last. Another swipe, and a strand of grass slipped through his fingers.

            _Blue. Red._

_Please._

            _I trust you two. I do._

            Lance stopped swimming. Let his legs drift behind him, let his arms float up to his sides, closed his eyes, resisted the urge to open his mouth to breathe, even though everything in him ached for one tiny bit of air.

             _Trust me again._

            Lance’s muscles felt light and leaden at the same time, as well as completely out of his control, the same way they felt when he woke up after sleeping on a limb for too long. He didn’t have it in him to take another stroke, kick again, move whatsoever.

            _Please._

An erratic heartbeat, then another.

            Lance opened his mouth at the same time he felt something wrap around his ankles, around his wrists, and draw him in lightning-fast. His eyes shot open as he inhaled water in a gasp, as he took in blue and red light glowing around him—the grasses, brighter than they’d been before. More strands twined around him, pulled him down, until the world went white around him.

            And then Lance choked and dropped from the sky.

            Everything tilted as Lance smacked down onto a wooden platform—a square made of planks, in the middle of open ocean, rain-slicked as a storm raged around him, skies impossibly black. He wheezed as he got to his hands and knees and expelled whatever water he’d taken in, salt overriding his senses of taste and smell. He was soaked to his bones, hair stuck to his face and to the back of his neck.

            “ _Jeez_ ,” Lance coughed, and then rose to his feet, legs wobbling underneath him as he took in the landscape. Water in all directions—choppy waves propelled by harsh gales, while lightning pulsed in the distance, and thunder cracked. Some of the waves lapped on Lance’s platform, water washing over his shoes. Lance noticed that here, he wasn’t wearing the formal clothes he was in the vents, nor the light suit of armor Lotor allowed him on the training deck.

            He was in his Paladin gear.

            _“Lance,”_ a rumbling voice called, as Lance’s heart pounded faster. _“Turn.”_

            In another life, Lance would’ve smiled. Here, Lance tentatively turned around, and came face-to-face with Blue and Red, two hulking forms rising from the ocean, rain sliding down their metal bodies. A bolt of lightning illuminated their faces, a stark contrast against the clouds. Lance shivered where he stood, taking in the sight of both of them.

            Should he have been speaking? Should he have been waiting, as he was?

            Lance shifted back and forth on his feet as he pondered the question, and Blue and Red said nothing. Their energies here were overpowering—not wrapping around him in support, not draped over him like a blanket, but like a wall, a barrier he wasn’t allowed to cross.

            _“It took you a long time to understand. Longer than we expected, but we’ve arrived at the matter.”_

            Lance’s eyes locked on Blue, while her stare seemed to pierce through him. Lance imagined shame in her gaze, resentment, bitterness.

            For all of his nerves, he didn’t look away. Didn’t collapse to his knees.

            _“A great deal of damage has already been done,”_ Blue went on. If she sensed Lance’s emotions, simmering underneath a lid that was barely keeping them in check, then she didn’t say a thing, and Red didn’t interrupt. _“I sense damage still to come, and the amount depends on you, Lance.”_

            Another gust of wind blew rain into Lance’s face. Lance squinted and shielded his eyes with his hand, hunched himself against the gale.

            _“You have realized your wrongs,”_ Red said. _“You know now what could have been helped, and what couldn’t. You will need to know the difference if you seek to return to the Castle of Lions as a Paladin.”_

            Lance had nothing to hold onto. He hugged himself and willed his legs to stay steady, willed himself to keep upright.

            _“You must tread carefully,”_ Blue warned. _“You’ve stumbled off of the path, but you’ve managed to find your way back. Make sure you do not lose sight of yourself entirely. We can only do so much—the rest depends on you.”_

            Purposefully vague, just the way it was in the movies. Typically, the movies had a little bit more structure, and Lance could piece together the protagonist’s future—clues he’d been able to pick on, genre tropes that kept reappearing. He knew the movie’s ending before the main character did, every time.

            Here, he had nothing.

            “I _am_ sorry,” Lance said, voice measured, as even as he could make it, but lightning flashed again, and thunder roared far too loudly, and Lance shut his mouth.

            _“We understand,”_ Red said, _“but the time is gone for verbal apologies. Your actions from here will speak your words. There are still trials ahead, Paladin. Act wisely. Allow us to aid you.”_

            If he’d allowed them in before, maybe he wouldn’t be in this situation. Wouldn’t have ended up married to Lotor, with the blood of his allies on his hands.

            At the thought, his hands stung. Lance looked down, to see his gloves shredding before his eyes, cuts opening along his palms, smaller ones along his fingers. His armor gained new dents and scratches and cracks that hadn’t been there before, his jumpsuit tore and blood welled along new injuries, and the rain and seawater only made things worse.

            Lance clenched his fists and ignored the pain in his hands as he raised his head back to Blue and Red, and nodded at them both.

            No more apologies. No more waiting.

            _“Go now, Paladin. You haven’t much time—they’re looking for you.”_

            The platform Lance stood on trembled beneath his feet, and the boards gave way. He didn’t scream when he fell, and the storm vanished, and the sea disappeared.

            He was absolutely silent as he jolted back into his physical body.

            Lance’s eyes flew open, and his body jerked. He winced as his foot slammed loudly into the vent wall, but it was nothing compared to the sounds of shouting down below. Lance hesitantly peered into the grate, and gaped at the sight of Red and Blue, particle barriers down.

            _“Go while you can,”_ Blue urged in Lance’s head.

            The Lions had bought him time.

            Lance nodded to no one and got moving, scrambling through the vent, back toward the closet he’d come from. For one reason or another, people were looking for him. Alright. He could deal. Probably Lotor, getting antsy. Hopefully, he wouldn’t think Lance attempted an escape—finding the hangar empty of his presence should have been enough to clear him.

            _Just go. Deal with it later._

* * *

             _“Your Imperial Majesty, the particle barriers around the Red and Blue Lions have fallen.”_

            Those were words Lotor did not intend to hear today, nor did he _want_ to hear them.

            He picked up the pace as he near-ran through the halls of Central Command. Other officers kept a steady pace, not overly-panicked yet, and Lotor guessed that this comm had come directly to him, and not to the troops at large. Otherwise, he assumed more personnel would be running to the hangars, to make sure Lance didn’t escape.

            “Have you been able to pinpoint a cause?” Lotor asked.

            _“No security breaches that we’ve been able to identify, Your Majesty,”_ the officer on the other end of the comms responded. _“Only a Paladin of Voltron would be able to awaken them like this, and there appear to be none inside this hangar.”_

            “And what of Jeremy?” Lotor demanded.

            _“Whereabouts still unknown,”_ the officer said.

            Lotor scowled and shut off his comms, after barking an order for the hangar to be scoured—every last bit of it. If Lance turned up there, or worse yet, a Paladin turned up on Central Command, then it would be clear: Lance had disobeyed orders. He already knew the consequences of insubordination like that; there would be no use tracking him down and threatening Earth _again._ Not when he could finally order his troops to move in.

            _Not yet._

            They still had a good ten doboshes or so.

            Ten, quickly running out.

* * *

            Hurrying back to the closet he came from did two things for Lance: got him lost, and got him caught.

            The grate beneath him took a second hit of blaster fire, and Lance dropped into a small control room being manned by two officers, both of whom had their guns trained on him. Lance unsheathed his sword in the blink of an eye and didn’t waste time lunging for the first officer. He took a hit to the side, nothing that couldn’t heal on its own, and swung his blade, knocking the gun from the officer’s hands. He tackled the officer, while the second tried to aim for him, and ended up hitting his own comrade in the arm.

            “Don’t fucking move,” Lance said, staggering to his feet, using the officer as a body shield. A wild idea came to him in that moment, as the second officer brought a wrist to his mouth, and paused halfway there.

            Lance angled his blade; it glinted as it caught the light, and the officer in his arms stilled, while the second one looked on in some cross between fear and amusement. Fear, that Lance would do it, because everyone knew by now what he was capable of. Amusement, because like it or not, he was still the human intruder aboard a command center full of trained army personnel.

            “Take off your communicator,” Lance ordered.

            The officer looked at Lance skeptically, and then at the officer in Lance’s arms.

            “Kill him then,” the officer said, and the other one let out a strangled cry of surprise. “I don’t care whether he lives or dies.”

            Lance shrugged. “Fine.”

            Some things were unavoidable, and it was this, or Earth.

            Lance drew his blade across the officer’s neck and let the body fall, while the other officer stared, open-mouthed. In that time, Lance stooped down to pick up the dead officer’s gun, and trained it on the officer at the control board. He stalked forward, while the officer raised his hands in surrender.

            “Wow, you didn’t think I’d go through with it, did you?” Lance taunted. He narrowed his eyes, gaze darkening. “Well I _did_. And I’ll do the same to _you_ if you don’t follow my orders exactly. Now…”

            Lance fired his blaster and struck the officer in the wrist. The officer yelped as the metal link of his communicator exploded, pieces falling to the floor, along with bits of armor from his gauntlets.

            “Establish a transmission to the Castle of Lions,” Lance said. “When we’re finished here, I want it _wiped from the system._ Are we understood? Emperor Lotor _does not hear of this._ If he gets wind, I’ll have no trouble taking matters into my own hands.”

            Lance waved the gun around.

            The officer nodded and turned to the control panel. Lance waited behind him, taking note of the officer’s every movement. He didn’t know what any of the labels meant, didn’t know what the Galran symbols meant, save for a few. The officer’s fingers flew at lightning speed, phrases flashing across the screen on the wall.

            Then the screen went dark.

            Then, the few Galran words Lance recognized: _Establishing Transmission._

* * *

            Lotor’s communicator cuff beeped halfway to the lions’ hangar. He pulled up the message while he walked, and stopped dead in his tracks.

            Lance.

            Faintly, the beeping of a computer, the rhythm that told Lotor a transmission was being established.

            _Idiot._

            Lotor looked around and ducked into the nearest room he could find—an observation deck, empty at this point. He sealed the door, eyes never leaving his communicator cuff, as new light illuminated Lance’s face.

            As the transmission began.

            As the first threads of a new plan wove themselves together in Lotor’s head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's camp nanowrimo, i've got the beginning and ending of chapter 29 as well as the beginning of chapter 30 plotted, and i'm determined to finish this fanfic within the next month or two (hopefully, yknow)
> 
> aaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAA
> 
> sneak peek for the next chapter: diplomatic fighting (aka, Keith Isn't Having This Shit)


	29. The One in Which There's a Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diplomacy: The Shitshow!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have plans, y'all

Chapter 29

            Becoming a Paladin of Voltron wasn’t so much _marching_ into war as it was being _thrown headfirst_ into it, a flurry of chaos that forced Keith to fight better, strike harder, move faster, think quicker. But for all of the trials he’d undergone since taking up his various mantles over the last year or so, he would still consider it easier than walking into the meeting room in the castle. Or at least, walking into the meeting room when it was already crowded with diplomats, only a handful of whom Keith recognized, just from the list he’d been given on the way here.

            _One foot in front of the other,_ Keith told himself as he entered the room at Allura’s left, while Shiro flanked her right, and Pidge and Hunk brought up behind them. There were six seats that weren’t occupied, and the Paladins who entered the room filled five of them. Allura sat at the head of the table, Shiro on her right, Pidge at Shiro’s right, Hunk at Pidge’s right. Keith sat on Allura’s left, while his own left remained vacant.

            “Everyone,” Allura began, still on her feet, the only person who hadn’t sat down. “I apologize for the delay in meeting, and I thank you all for your patience. Let us begin.”

            Keith raised his head slightly and looked down the table at the people sitting around him, stomach knotting as he noted each person. Some of them had to have come a long way just to be here. People like Queen Paveir, like Chancellor Verna, like Ryner and Shay and even Matt, back from Earth, seated with another person dressed in a similar outfit, evidently part of his group of rebels. Keith’s eyes continued roving over each of the people sitting with them, taking in unfamiliar faces.

            Allura had explained on the way here that not every person seated at this table was one of their established allies. Some of these people were allies of allies, while others were people who’d claimed to back the Voltron Alliance and all it stood for, but never actually came into contact with the team until now.

            Keith froze as his eyes landed on a figure seated between two people who looked like they could’ve been from somewhere in the Bovona System. The two on either side, he didn’t recognize. The one in the middle, though, he did, and his breath caught in the back of his throat. At once, he wished he’d noticed her before, so he could’ve told Allura or Shiro _hell no,_ or at least had time to prepare himself.

            His eyes flitted about the rest of the group, his assessments jumping from inspecting to merely scanning, to see if there was anyone else he missed. He ended things on Tiva, sitting closer to Team Voltron than all of the other diplomats here. Her arms were crossed, and she leaned back slightly in her seat. Keith caught her eye; for a heartbeat, both of them stared at each other, several emotions running through Keith at once, and then Tiva’s gaze hardened and dropped to the table.

            Keith shifted uncomfortably in his chair, stomach churning.

            Maybe he shouldn’t have lashed out. Maybe he should’ve stayed and listened all the way through to what the others had to tell him, to what they’d wanted to show him. Let them tell him about the diplomats aboard the ship more than two minutes ahead of time, because Tiva wouldn’t hold his gaze and _Luce_ was here and so was Chancellor Verna and even Shay and Matt and _not Lance._

            Someone kicked Keith under the table. Keith glanced up, at Shiro. Shiro flicked his eyes up and down and tilted his chin up, eyes stern.

            _Sit up. These are diplomats._

            Keith sighed inaudibly and shifted again, as inconspicuously as possible while Allura talked about the agenda for the meeting: formulating a plan to attack Central Command, rescue Lance, and take out Lotor.

            At the mention of Lance, Keith drew his jacket tighter around him, readjusting it so the shoulders of the jacket sat in their proper place, instead of sliding down Keith’s back and arms. He turned his attention to the other diplomats, rather than Allura, gauging reactions. Some, like Shay and Matt, Ryner and Queen Paveir, nodded in earnest. Others kept their faces carefully void of emotion, no reaction to be found, no matter how long Keith stared. Then there were a handful—all people Keith couldn’t identify—who were outright frowning.

            _Do they feel bad? Are they not on board with this?_

            _Who wouldn_ _’t be on board with this?_

            But Keith already knew the sort of people who wouldn’t be on board with it—people with their own agendas, and people who didn’t know the full story.

            The clips Keith had seen so far came flooding back to him, everything from after his capture and after his rescue. People saw Lance and saw a murderer, saw Lotor’s husband—Keith’s lip curled in disgust at the thought—saw someone who’d _betrayed_ not just the Paladins, but countless people, entire civilizations.

            _You don_ _’t understand._

            Keith bit his tongue to keep from suddenly making a remark. The meeting had barely started, and no one had opened their mouths to speak yet. He was getting ahead of himself here—maybe these people _did_ understand. Maybe they were just…concerned with how long it took to have a meeting in the first place. Or something.

            That had to be it.

            “As you know,” Allura said, grabbing Keith’s attention, “nearly two phoebs ago, our forces were tricked into ambushes on Tarvin, specifically on planets Tarvin One, Two, and Three. Our Green and Yellow Paladins managed an escape from Tarvin One, while the Black Paladin and I managed an evacuation of Tarvin Two. However…those on Tarvin Three weren’t as fortunate.”

            Allura’s voice grew softer. She glanced at Keith; he clenched his fists, digging his fingers into the leather of his gloves. He turned his hands palm-down, so no one could see him, and the sleeves of Lance’s jacket fell over them, down to his knuckles. He didn’t look at the diplomats. Instead, he turned to Hunk and Pidge. He’d told them first of the Eddulan soldiers. They’d seen firsthand his relationship with Lance, when Shiro and Allura and Coran had been too busy with other affairs, arranging missions, handling the diplomacy while they hung back, awaiting orders.

            “Keith,” Allura said, and Keith dragged his eyes up to meet hers. “You were there. We have the clip of what happened, but perhaps a firsthand account—”

            “Play the clip,” Keith interrupted, surprised to find his voice as emotionless as the faces of half the people here.

            Keith had his back to the viewing screen. While others on his side of the table turned to face it, Keith didn’t. The room fell dark, illuminated by the screen. Keith knew when the clip first began—he heard his own voice calling for Lance to stay with him, heard Lance calling back that he was doing his best. Keith grit his teeth the longer the clip went on, fighting to keep himself composed. His blood thrummed in his veins, echoing the adrenaline he’d felt in that moment.

            _“Don’t hurt him!”_

            What Keith wouldn’t give for the roles to be reversed right now, for Lance to have been the one rescued, for himself to be the one at Central Command, dealing with Lotor.

            _I should_ _’ve fought harder._

            _“No! Leave him—Lance!_ Don’t touch him! _”_

            Keith’s vision blurred before he could process it. He ducked his head; he refrained from pulling Lance’s hood up, because it would only draw more attention to him, the last thing he needed when he just wanted some privacy. For now, his bangs would have to do the job.

            He hadn’t cut his bangs when he cut the rest of his hair. They weren’t quite long enough to be gathered up with everything else, and Keith hadn’t been in the mood for precision or neatness. Now they obscured his face from everyone else, and allowed him to scrub a hand over his eyes before anyone noticed he was on the verge of weeping.

            Nearly two months since this, his last meaningful interaction with Lance.

            _He thought he_ _’d be safe with you, and look where that got him._

            All of the fury-driven confidence Keith had had just prior entering this room was gone, replaced with nothing but sheer _guilt._

            He let his hands fall away, back onto the table, and he peered through his hair at everyone else. Most people were still watching the clip; many gaping, a few covering their faces in shock, still some who remained entirely impassive. When Keith glanced at the team again, he found everyone else watching _him._ Shiro’s face was white, slack, too many emotions in the eyes he leveled at Keith. Keith’s chest tightened. Whatever he was feeling, Shiro had to be feeling similarly.

            He’d sent them to Tarvin Three, and played right into Lotor’s hands.

            “As you can see,” Allura said, when the clip ended with Keith getting dragged off, “Lotor has taken hostage our Blue Paladin, as well as the red and blue bayards and lions. Oh—yes?”

            The Paladins followed Allura’s gaze toward the other end of the table, where one of the diplomats had their hand up. They were short even by Earth standards, maybe four feet tall, with a head about equivalent to the size of the rest of their body. They had four arms, each with six fingers—two thumb-like appendages, it appeared. The diplomat used their other hand to brush strands of kelpy-looking hair out of their three eyes.

            “I would like to hear about this encounter in the words of the Red Paladin himself,” the diplomat said.

            All three of their eyes locked onto him, and slowly, the other diplomats followed, turning in their seats to look at Keith. Keith tipped his chin and brushed some of the hair from his eyes like it wasn’t getting harder to breathe. What was he supposed to say? They saw everything go down _right there._ He had nothing left to explain.

            “What else is there to say?” Keith asked. “I was used as a _bargaining chip_ while they took La— _the Blue Paladin_ back to Central Command.”

            “There’s clearly history here that some of us are unaware of,” another diplomat Keith didn’t recognize spoke up. They sat rod-straight in their seat, probably six feet tall or so, two arms, a scar slicing deep into the left side of their face. Their left eye was missing, making the look they shot at Keith from their right eye all the more severe.

            “That’s true,” the short diplomat said. “If we could understand the context of this ambush, I think it would be helpful. Some of us are in the dark, and the Red Paladin seems to know the most. Or, at least, he seems to be the most affected by it.”

            Keith folded his hands in front of him to keep them from doing something ridiculous, like shaking. Or raising a middle finger. Or punching someone’s face in.

            “We infiltrated Lotor’s ship when he was still just the prince—the Blue Paladin and I. Lotor became obsessed with him, tried to kill me, and then tried to kill the rest of the team when they came in for a rescue,” Keith said. “He kept trying to bait us into a confrontation, and that’s what he got. He would have killed me if he hadn’t needed me to bargain with. Any questions?”

            Keith raised one eyebrow as he scanned over the diplomats again. It was always one of the ones he didn’t know that gave him some sort of unsettling stare, or disapproving frown, or anything to indicate that they weren’t on board with this, weren’t following, maybe wanted to dissent.

            No one replied to him.

            Keith sat back in his seat, willing his hands to stay folded and on the table. He glanced back at Allura and nodded, a silent go-ahead to continue on with the meeting.

            “So as you can see,” Allura said, “while we’ve managed to recover our Red Paladin, the Blue Paladin remains in the custody of the Empire. We’ve been attempting to put together a rescue plan since his initial capture, but we’ve yet to finalize the details. Invading Central Command is no simple task—we decided to wait until Keith was rescued and fully healed from his injuries, and we’ve called in you all.”

            “From what’s come out of Central Command in the last few movements, it doesn’t appear that the Blue Paladin needs any rescuing,” a voice cut across the ensuing silence. Diplomats who’d been solemnly glancing between each other swiveled their heads toward the source of the voice. Yet again, one of the people here Keith had no knowledge of.

            Keith shot a look at Hunk, across the table. Hunk met gazes with him, and then glanced down the end of the table, at the diplomat who’d spoken up. Tall, built like a tank, four-eyed—though two of their eyes were milky, and whether they were blind in those eyes, or they served some other function, Keith couldn’t tell.

            “What’s that supposed to mean?” Hunk asked.

            The diplomat paused, eyes widening slightly at Hunk, before their expression fell back into cool neutrality.

            “We’ve all seen the footage out of Central Command of Jer—”

            “His name is _Lance_ ,” Keith blurted. For a second, his voice wavered, but a nod from Hunk and a grim smile from Pidge cemented his conviction. “Jeremy was a code name, that’s _it._ We don’t need to talk in code here.”

            The table fell silent. Keith stared down the diplomat, daring them to say something else, and his blood went from simmering to boiling when they did.

            “Aren’t you worried that _Lance_ isn’t even there?” the diplomat asked. “What Paladin kills an ally? What Paladin marries the emperor? What Paladin sends in troops and _destroys planets?_ My people have lost two allies thanks to the strategies of your Blue Paladin!”

            Keith opened and closed his mouth, failing to muster up a response. The diplomat leaned forward, challenging Keith to say something, when Shiro cleared his throat.

            “He has to be under extreme pressure, or maybe even mind control.” His voice was measured, eerily calm, and he flexed his fingers. He glanced down the table, eyes flicking from the diplomat who’d spoken, to the others, finally landing on Matt, who gave him a nod. “I was a Galra prisoner for a year and was forced to do things I _still_ regret, things I’d never do under normal circumstances.”

            Matt nodded at him, again. Shiro shifted his eyes to Keith, who shot him a grateful look.

            The diplomats themselves all shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

            “I would like to know more about his situation,” Ryner spoke up then, and some of the tension eased out of Keith’s shoulders at the sound of an ally he knew he could trust. “I’d like to know why Lotor went after him, and what the bigger scheme at play is.”

            “Excellent question,” Allura jumped back into the conversation. “His ultimate endgame is Voltron, as before Lance and Keith’s capture, he attempted to bait us into several confrontations, all with the goal of having us hand over Voltron in exchange for universal peace—peace, which you might guess, would never actually come, as he would likely use Voltron to meet his own ends and speed up the conquering process. However, prior to these threats, he also developed an unhealthy infatuation with Lance…”

            _And here we are again._

            Keith’s stomach clenched as the memories of Lance’s _first_ time aboard Lotor’s ship surged up, memories of the mic going down on them, memories of Lance standing by while Lotor threatened him, being trapped in Lance’s arms as Lotor dragged a knife across his face—

            A sharp pain shot up Keith’s shin, another grounding kick from Shiro.

            “And how did this _infatuation_ develop?” another diplomat pressed.

            Keith didn’t even realize Allura had stopped speaking.

            “We already told you, there was a mission,” Keith found himself saying. He sat up straighter, cleared his throat as every eye in the room landed on him. “Lotor mistook Lance for a Galran spy, and asked him to come back to the Empire with him—”

            “Why would he mistake Lance for a Galran spy?”

            Keith expected a surge of anger to rush through him at the interruption, but it was Matt staring at him, genuinely confused, just as the rest of the team had been that day. Keith couldn’t be mad at him.

            “I don’t know,” Keith answered with a shake of the head. “He thought Lance killed me, I guess. Point is, we went undercover. Lotor immediately became obsessed with Lance and wanted me dead. He kept trying to hold me over the team’s head to get them to hand over the rest of the Lions, because he already had Blue. He never offered up Lance, because he wasn’t getting rid of Lance. I almost think he’d rather have Lance than Voltron.”

            Keith’s eyes widened as soon as the words left his mouth, as hushed whispers went up among the diplomats. Matt shot him a sympathetic look that Keith glanced away from almost immediately. Instead, he focused on Hunk and Pidge, both of whom were just as shocked as he was.

            “So there’s our solution to the Voltron problem,” another of the unrecognizable diplomats said.

            “I _hope_ you’re not insinuating what I think you are,” Allura said at once, pressing her palms flat against the table. “I hope you’re not insinuating we _give over_ one of our own Paladins in exchange for the Red and Blue Lions.”

            “And why not?” the scarred diplomat asked. “If the Blue Paladin is what the Emperor wants, and he’s willing to give back the universe’s greatest weapon, _why not do that?_ Are you really going to trade one life for the universe? How is that any different from anything the Emperor has done to get the Blue Paladin back, as you’ve said?”

            “We can’t form Voltron without the Blue Paladin,” Shiro interjected, leveling dark eyes at the diplomat. “There’s no point in getting the Lions back otherwise.”

            “Untrue,” the milky-eyed diplomat called out. “If I recall correctly, Princess Allura herself has flown the Blue Lion, of all Lions.”

            Shiro went quiet. Hunk dropped his head and studied the table, while Pidge grit her teeth and shot a look at Keith. Horror coiled in Keith’s gut—here were people who claimed to be on their side, making a case for leaving Lance at Central Command. Forever. And Keith knew, deep down, that if Lance were here, he would agree with them.

            “No objections?” the milky-eyed diplomat asked.

            Keith’s hand twitched. The blade resting in its sheath against the small of his back practically burned, begging to be used to make his point, and Keith resisted the urge to draw it.

            It would only make things worse.

            “Of _course_ we object,” Keith said, and stood up. “We’re just having trouble processing the amount of _bullshit_ that just came out of your mouth!”

            “Keith—” Shiro started, while a few other diplomats rose to their feet.

            “Are you thinking with your head or your heart?” the scarred diplomat fired back at him. “ _All of us_ have lost loved ones, and some of us will never have the chance to see them again, thanks to your _lover!_ ”

            “That’s enough!” Allura shouted.

            Pidge didn’t listen. She stood up on the seat of her chair. “You know what would happen if we thought with our heads every fucking minute of the day? He wouldn’t be here—” she gestured to Matt, “—and neither would _he_ —” a finger at Shiro, “—and then you know what? We _really_ wouldn’t be able to form Voltron, because who’s to say things still wouldn’t have ended up like this? We went in, we rescued them, and now Earth is prepped for invasion—”

            “What?”

            The words left Keith’s mouth in a gasp. Pidge turned toward him, cast a look down at Hunk, one at Allura and Shiro, while the rest of the room fell back into silence.

            “…We didn’t tell him.”

            Pidge’s voice was much quieter.

            “Tell me what?” Keith asked, voice shaking.

            Another look to Hunk. Hunk cleared his throat. “When we were pulling things from Central Command, we found a transmission to three of his commanders, a few days after the wedding. They were orders to get to the Milky Way and wait for further instructions to invade Earth. Luckily, Matt and his band of rebels acted fast, and got into contact with the Garrison.”

            Hunk flicked his eyes to Matt.

            “When I went back to Earth, after you all rescued me,” Matt said, jumping in without missing a beat, “I helped the Garrison up their defenses. You know, once we convinced Iverson I wasn’t a threat and hadn’t hallucinated everything. It helped that Olia—” Matt nudged the dog-looking alien sitting to his left “—came down for a follow-up. The Garrison’s prepped, and other defense organizations have been gearing up, too. We warned them that there could be an attack on Earth within the next few days.”

            “Why haven’t they attacked outright?” the kelpy-haired diplomat asked.

            Matt shrugged. “That, we never found out.”

            Hunk fidgeted in his chair, and tentatively raised his hand. “I had a theory.”

            Keith watched him, heart crawling into his throat. Everything worsened when Hunk’s eyes flashed to him for the briefest second, before returning to the group of diplomats at large, like he knew Keith would back him on this.

            “Which is?” the milky-eyed diplomat pressed impatiently.

            “I feel like…I feel like Lance is only doing what he’s been doing because Lotor threatened Earth. There’s…a lot of evidence to point to this, actually.”

            Hunk swallowed and shot another glance at Keith, whose entire world seemed to have dropped out from underneath him. Of course—of fucking _course—_

            The lights overhead dimmed at that moment, and the screen behind Keith flared up with movement. Keith turned, only to find the team as surprised as he was; none of them had touched anything.

            “What’s going on?” Ryner asked, as Tiva pushed back out of her seat.

            “I don’t—” Shiro started, only to get cut off by the words _Incoming Transmission._

            “Is that…?” Hunk whispered.

            Allura narrowed her eyes. “Lotor.”

            For a moment, nobody moved. The diplomats shot confused looks at each other, while Tiva speed-walked to the side of the screen, where a computer station was set up. Pidge rose to her feet and decided to join Tiva. Shay finally found her voice and glanced at Allura.

            “Are we going to answer it?”

            Allura hesitated, and in that second, Keith spoke up: “Answer it. If Lotor’s calling, then there’s a reason for it.”

            He faced toward the screen, crossed his arms over his chest. Behind him, he could hear Shiro and Hunk and Allura’s chairs scraping the floor, as they came to his sides. He braced himself as the screen changed, the words disappearing, the darkness lightening—

            “Lance?”

            Murmurs started up around the room, and they all fell on deaf ears as Keith took an involuntary step forward, arms falling slack, down to his sides.

            Here stood Lance: hair a hot mess, a gun in hand, a guard just barely in the frame at the bottom of the screen, while Lance kept the gun trained on their head. There was a mark on Lance’s side, where his clothes were scorched. His eyes, though, struck Keith the most—they were a lot duller than they’d been in the last transmission he’d seen Lance in, back aboard that Galra ship.

            “You—you’re—”

            Lance nodded, bit his lip, looked at Keith and Keith only.

            _“Yeah.”_

            A loaded word, a million questions answered, a confirmation of every incredulous thing Keith wanted to ask. Keith blinked, and his vision blurred, and something wet slipped down his cheek. Lance swallowed and raised his eyes to the ceiling, tipped his head back and blinked a few times, before he lowered his chin again and gazed at the team in its entirety.

            _“I don’t have a lot of time, but I need to warn you,”_ Lance said. His eyes jumped from Allura, to Shiro, to Hunk, a quick sweep over the diplomats in the background, settling back on Keith. _“Lotor ordered an attack on the castleship, and just from the gossip I’ve heard…you need to prepare.”_

            “How do we know this isn’t some ploy?” one of the diplomats called.

            Lance glanced over the heads of Team Voltron and shook his head, sad smile coming over his face. _“I wish I could give more than my word, but as it is…I’m already risking a lot to get this warning out. Lotor, he—”_

            “We know about Earth,” Allura interrupted softly. “We know, Lance.”

            “Earth is being taken care of!” Matt called out with a cheeky grin and a thumb’s-up, a weak attempt to lighten the mood.

            Lance nodded, at a loss for words, and glanced at the officer in the corner of the screen. Something shadowy passed over his face, for a fraction of a second, and Keith caught it, heart threatening to break.

            _“The attack is being led by someone named Commander Varx,”_ Lance went on, without looking up. _“According to the soldiers around here, it should be quite the victory for the Galra. Commander Varx is supposedly about a quintant or two away. I know it’s not much time, and I wish I knew sooner. I’m sorry. A-And…”_

            Lance took in a shuddering breath, and Keith stepped forward again, everything in him aching to throw himself through the screen just to _be there_ and hold Lance. But then someone put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, and Keith had to settle for standing there and hoping Lance knew.

            _“I’m sorry for everything I’ve done, everything you’ve seen me do, I-I…I haven’t been making the best calls. I thought I was acting in the right interests, but there were times…my judgment was clouded. And I wish I could go back and do some things over…but I can’t.”_

            _Me too. I understand._

            Something wrapped tightly around Keith’s heart. He understood everything Lance said and everything he left hanging, understood the pain in his eyes and the slight rigidity to his posture and the way he avoided looking him directly in the eyes.

            “You were doing what you needed to survive,” Keith said, no guesswork about it. “I can’t speak for everyone here, but I can’t hold that against you.”

            Lance nodded again, swallowed hard, forced himself to look Keith in the eyes.

            “We’re going to rescue you.” Once the words left his mouth, Keith couldn’t stop. “I promise, Lance. We’re coming for you. We—we’re not going to leave you there. No matter what’s been done. Understand that. I’d never… _we_ _’d_ never abandon you.”

            For once, the other diplomats stayed silent.

            _“Don’t worry about me,”_ Lance said, and the thing around Keith’s heart clenched. _“Worry about getting Blue and Red. I’ll be okay.”_

            Keith pursed his lips, shook his head, swallowed the lump in his throat.

            “No can do,” he whispered.

            For a heartbeat, he and Lance simply stared at each other, before Lance nodded, and started moving.

            _“I have to go,”_ Lance said. _“Prepare for attack, and…I’ll see you on the other side, I guess.”_

            Keith almost said it, almost let the words that had been burning inside of him for the last near-two months spill out, but he set his jaw, nodded tightly, and let Lance end the transmission. The screen dimmed, and the lights went back up. The Paladins turned to face the diplomats.

            “You heard Lance,” Allura said. “The ship is set to be under attack within two quintants. That’s not much time to prepare for defense, and even less time to prepare an attack strategy—and we _will_ be attacking soon.”

            “ _You heard Lance_ ,” the milky-eyed diplomat mimicked. “He said to worry about the _Lions._ ”

            “We’re capable of multitasking,” Allura responded sharply. “Tiva, Pidge—have you found anything useful?”

            Tiva shook her head. “No. But I _do_ have knowledge on Commander Varx.”

            Tiva stepped away from the computer, and let Pidge take over while she strode forward, to join the Paladins in front of everyone else.

            “Commander Varx is a brutal commander,” she began. “She’s been known to take control of planets in just a few vargas. She’ll kill anyone who stands in her way, and if she’s been ordered to attack the castleship, then there’s no doubt in my mind that she’s under _direct orders_ to kill. If she kills us, then Lotor gets the other three Lions—he’s got Lance _and_ all of Voltron.”

            “But no pilots,” Luce said, and crossed her arms.

            Keith wished Tiva would just ignore her, but Luce had a point.

            “No pilots,” Tiva confirmed, “but Lotor was trying quintessence experiments with the Lions at the beginning of this whole mess, wasn’t he?”

            Tiva glanced at Keith and the rest of the team.

            “She’s right,” Shiro said. “Lotor’s head druid, Haggar, was able to take control of the Blue Lion _and_ Lance by playing with the quintessence connection between them. Fortunately for us, Haggar’s dead now. Unfortunately, there’s nothing that says another druid can’t train up to reach the levels of manipulation Haggar was capable of. Their goal was to be able to pilot Voltron without actually getting into the cockpits, over long distances. If they succeed…it’s over.”

            “Which is why the Lions can’t fall into their hands,” Hunk added. “Which is why we need to figure out a plan, like, soon.”

            “The common thread here is all Lotor’s planning, then?” Luce asked.

            She raised her eyebrows, and it was then that Keith understood just what she was getting at.

            “Yeah,” Keith said.

            Pidge seemed to understand, too. She looked up from her computer, looked at Allura.

            “So then we assassinate him.”

            Allura began to nod, and turned to the diplomats. “Yes. Assassination was an idea we’ve been sitting on for a little while now, and we think—”

            “It won’t work,” the scarred diplomat interjected.

            Keith guessed they hadn’t meant their words to come out as harshly as he perceived them, but given everything else he’d heard leave this diplomat’s mouth today, he was just about done with their commentary.

            “Elaborate, please.” Allura, too, was doing her best not to sound downright annoyed.

            “We assassinate Lotor, yeah. But do you know how he became the emperor? He killed Zarkon. So say we kill Lotor. The title of emperor goes to the next person in line, and in this case, that would be to Lotor’s _husband._ ”

            Keith blanched, and every eye in the room landed on him, because _dammit,_ that thought hadn’t even occurred to him. Lance was fucking _married_ to Lotor, and while everyone in the room knew Lance was faking everything, including his affections for Lotor, most of the universe _didn_ _’t._ Most of the universe saw Jeremy Ortega, Lotor’s lover, husband, and _second-in-command._ If Lotor died, all responsibility fell to him.

            “And if there’s a power struggle,” the scarred diplomat continued, “then who’s getting targeted? _Lotor_ _’s husband._ ”

            “He could abdicate,” Hunk said evenly. “He—”

            “Who would he abdicate to?” the kelpy-haired diplomat interrupted. “There’s not exactly someone in the Empire who sticks out as a potential ruler, and we all know the Blue Paladin won’t be leading the Empire for very long if power goes to him.”

            “It doesn’t matter,” Shiro said, and put his hands up. “No matter what, priority one is recovering the Lions and recovering Lance. If something happens to Lotor, or we get the chance to assassinate him, we cross that bridge when we get to it, but for now—”

            “We can’t just let that sit,” Queen Paveir interrupted.

            Shiro shut his mouth as the queen rose from her seat. The Nivonian military was a powerful asset, and he wouldn’t toss it away by disrespecting the queen. Especially not at a time as crucial as this.

            “If we do nothing about Lotor,” the queen went on, “then he’ll keep coming back. You must end the problem as soon as possible.”

            The room quieted, and then: “Me.”

            Allura stepped forward, hands clasped tightly in front of her.

            “Allura—” Shiro started, but Allura put a hand up.

            “The argument could be made that whoever assassinates Lotor will be the one to have power handed down to them, as it was _Lotor_ who killed Zarkon. No matter who kills Lotor, they could abdicate to me. I’d be willing to handle the death threats, and I’m no stranger to diplomacy.”

            “And how do we know this isn’t just some grab for power?” the scarred diplomat asked.

            Allura unclasped her hands and spread her palms. “I give my word, but believe me when I say I want good for the universe, and the way the Galra are going about it isn’t it. Watching my planet get destroyed, as well as having the last remains of my father get corrupted by them, will do that to you. Believe me, I do not make this decision lightly.”

            When nobody voiced concerns, Allura nodded, and turned toward the other Paladins. “Now, we must begin planning. Time is running out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i thought i knew where i would start chapter 30 but i changed my mind
> 
> so, assuming i don't change my mind again: next chapter is from lance's point of view ;)
> 
> SEE Y'ALL THEN, I'M ON VACA THIS WEEK, MAYBE THIS WILL BE LIKE DECEMBER BREAK WHERE I UPLOADED THREE CHAPTERS IN A WEEK? WHO KNOWS MAN
> 
> LATERRRR


	30. The One in Which Two Forces Prepare to Collide: REDUX

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone's plotting against everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're gettin close, y'all
> 
> there's definitely at least two chapters plus an epilogue after this, maybe three chapters plus an epilogue (don't quote me on this tho we all know by now i am vvvvv indecisive)
> 
> **trigger warning for violence, noncon drug use (a la chapters 8-10), and lotor _still_ somehow being a creep**

Chapter 30

            _Two._

            Lance decided to keep a running tally of the number of lives he took since his discussions with Blue and Red. This was war, and he was a soldier—murder was unavoidable, and especially in circumstances like his. But before, he’d lost track of the number of guards he mowed down in the halls, how many people he slaughtered in the arena and in the cells, how many lives he wiped out on planets taken over under his direction.

            Now, he could at least feel slightly less guilty when he had an exact count.

            Lance’s face screwed up in disgust as he slowly pushed the two bodies in the room off into the corner with his foot, limbs haphazardly flung about—the one guard’s foot was in the other’s face, but it wasn’t like it mattered when they were both dead. Lance shuddered at that thought, turned his gun’s safety on, and stowed it in his waistband.

            Getting back into the vents from this room wasn’t an option. The opening was too high over his head for him to reach, even if he jumped and didn’t hurt himself catching onto the lip of it. He’d have to risk roaming the halls, which meant, inevitably, interacting with soldiers who were searching for him.

            Hopefully, Lotor hadn’t authorized them to use force in tracking him down.

            Lance paused just before the door. He thought about reflecting on the transmission, picking it apart, piece by piece, but he didn’t have the time for that. If he did that, he’d no doubt end up thinking about the team, and about _Keith_ —

            _Stop. You did what you had to do._

            He’d accomplished his goal to warn them: now was the time to keep moving. They’d promised to come for him, and all Lance had to do now—assuming they hadn’t lied, assuming the diplomats in the room would cooperate—was wait things out. They couldn’t take more than a few days to come to Central Command, if Keith had been back for weeks and was now out of the pods, right?

            Just a few more days of playing up the romance, just a few more days of skirting around Lotor, and then Lance would be gone. He’d be back with the team, they’d have Red and Blue and all of the bayards, and they could form Voltron again. Lotor’s threats to Earth would be meaningless, as if they weren’t already. If Earth’s defenses were as strong as Matt had implied.

            _Move. Soldiers are looking for you. That means_ Lotor _is looking for you._

            At that, Lance stopped altogether.

            Glanced down at his communicator cuff.

            _He hasn_ _’t tried contacting me all day._

            Lance raised his head and opened the door, heart thumping harder than it had been during the transmission—that was _fine._ Everything was absolutely, positively _fine._ Maybe Lotor was just getting paranoid. Maybe he forgot he’d given a communicator to Lance in the first place. Maybe he was still the same aloof prince Lance had hesitated to kill on the battlefield after all.

            _You_ _’ve got this. You’re too close to slip up again._

            Lance peered into the hallway. They echoed with the calls of soldiers in other places, but this particular corridor was empty. Lance let out a silent breath and stepped into the hall and shut the door. It shut with a clang, louder than Lance would’ve liked. He winced, but no new shouts went up, no one called out that they heard something, no one came running. Lance nodded to himself, rolled his shoulders, straightened his back, and started on his way, like he had no idea what was happening.

            He contorted his face in confusion upon entering one of the more crowded corridors. His fingers twitched, automatically, toward the sheathed blade at his side. He was acutely aware of the lumpy shape of the gun tucked against his back. He’d worn a cape today, but even a cape wouldn’t obscure the weapon forever. Not if someone got too curious or studied him for too long. If it came down to it…he needed to have the quicker draw.

            And he would.

            “Your Majesty,” one of the soldiers approached Lance from behind, and Lance spun, mindful of the way his cape swished.

            “Yes?” Lance asked, narrowing his gaze just the slightest. He had to tip his chin up slightly to look the soldier in the eyes—well, visor—with a hardened glare that he hoped would have the soldier cowering even a little bit.

            He was surrounded, and he needed these people afraid of him long enough for him to reach safety unscathed.

            “His Imperial Majesty has been looking for you,” the soldier replied.

            Lance couldn’t tell whether or not the soldier was scrutinizing him. Their mouth went into a thin line, waiting for Lance to speak up. Every other soldier in the hall had stopped moving and stood rigid, awaiting orders, pretending like they weren’t observing the conversation unfolding.

            “Really?” Lance asked. “He hasn’t tried contacting me all day, and my communicator has been working _perfectly._ ”

            Lance demonstrated by activating it, and reaching out to Lotor. He waited for several seconds, before a shimmering projection of Lotor came up. Lotor was scowling, for just a fraction of a second, before his face lit up. Lance pretended like he hadn’t seen it, pretended like his heart hadn’t missed a beat.

            “My dear, you’ve been looking for me?” Lance asked, with the sweetest smile he could manage, with as much affection as he could possibly let into his voice.

            It was easier, almost. Easier than it had been in the last near-two months, that was for sure. Maybe it was the knowledge that his time here was coming to an end. No matter what he did, the team was coming, and they wouldn’t leave without him.

            _“Yes, I have,”_ Lotor said. _“Where have you been?”_

            “Just wandering,” Lance answered pleasantly. “Getting some air. Why haven’t you tried to contact me?”

            There. Lotor blinked at him, completely caught off-guard by the question, and Lance suppressed a smile as his mouth curved down. The soldier in front of Lance shifted back and forth on his feet, glanced to the side at the other soldiers, one of whom shrugged.

            _“What do you mean, my love?”_ Lotor asked. _“I’ve reached out multiple times, but—”_

            “You haven’t,” Lance interrupted. “I’ve gotten no notification.”

            Lotor frowned. Even through the hologram, Lance could see a flash of murderous intent pass over Lotor’s face. He refrained from inhaling too sharply, too deeply, and kept his face passive.

            _Watch the boundary._

            _“There must be a problem with your communicator,”_ Lotor said. _“Meet me in my chambers. While we’re there, I’m sure we can figure out what’s wrong with it.”_

            Lance flushed as the soldier standing closes to him turned to glance at the others, while a few in the hall started whispering to themselves, giggling. Lance even caught sight of one of them jabbing another conspiratorially with an elbow. He did his best to tune them out and focus on the task at hand: meet Lotor in his room.

            Alright. Fine. Nothing he hadn’t done before.

            _“I’ll be there soon,”_ Lance said.

            Lotor eyed him and cut off the communication with a quick, _I_ _’ll see you soon, my love._ Around Lance, the soldiers were all still grinning, muttering things to each other. Lance cleared his throat, and they returned to attention. He purposely laid a hand on the hilt of his sword, and that seemed to be enough for them. Those who’d continued smiling promptly schooled their faces back into neutrality, while Lance turned and started out of the hall.

            “I’m under orders to escort you,” the one soldier standing next to him said, and then barked an order over his shoulder for the others to get back to business as normal.

            Just one soldier?

            Easy.

            Lance nodded to the soldier and allowed him to by his side. The soldier held onto his gun, but made no move to train it on Lance. He could’ve, and probably should’ve—unless he knew Lance was carrying a gun of his own. Unless he knew what he’d managed on the training deck with a blade.

            Or maybe he was biding his time.

            The walk to Lotor’s chambers carried out in silence. Lance noted the soldier’s movements, the slight missteps here and there that told Lance this soldier was random, no one important—not important enough to have the route to Lotor’s chambers memorized. When Lance stepped off-course, down the abandoned hall to his own room, the soldier kept up.

            Lance’s grip on his blade tightened, and he nearly pulled it from its sheath when he stopped.

            The soldier hadn’t seen him do anything wrong, hadn’t tried anything. The soldier was just doing his _job._

            “You’re free to go,” Lance said as he came to a halt outside his own door. “Thank you.”

            The soldier made a noise in his throat. He peered down at Lance—or at least, Lance thought he was peering, but the visor made it just a bit too difficult to tell—and then tentatively gave him a smile. Still didn’t pull his gun, as part of Lance expected him to. Instead, he nodded, uttered a _you_ _’re welcome, Your Majesty,_ and carried on his way.

            Lance waited to go into his room until the soldier was gone.

            He hurried. He opened the door and ran inside the room on his tiptoes, to keep his footfalls as quiet as he could possibly make them. He yanked open the bottommost drawer of the dresser and shoved the gun inside, and then buried it amongst the clothes until it was no longer visible.

            _Breathe._

            Lance paused, one hand braced against the top of the dresser, and took in a few deep breaths.

            _Just a little longer._

            This time, there was no buzz beneath his skin, no tossing and turning of his stomach, no sweat breaking out on his forehead or the back of his neck, no shaking hands. Lance let go of the dresser and righted himself, and then left his room, and let his door fall shut behind him.

            He kept his walk to Lotor’s chambers casual. There was no swagger to his gait, nor any hurry. He knocked on the door when he arrived, and a few seconds later, it it opened for him. Lotor stood on the other side, smiling far too demurely. The hair on the back of Lance’s neck stood up. He turned his head slightly—the hall was still as empty as it was on his walk down here.

            _Keep your guard up._

            Like he hadn’t already been doing so.

            “My love, I’m glad to see you’re unhurt,” Lotor said, and moved to sweep Lance in for a hug. One of his hands was fisted, grasping something Lance couldn’t quite make out. Regardless, Lance let Lotor hug him, hold him tightly as he pulled Lance into the room and shut the door.

            “Of course,” Lance said. “Why would I be hurt?”

            _It_ _’s the arm near my neck._ Lance could feel the unusual tension in Lotor’s muscles there, the way his arm didn’t rest in quite the right way.

            “My soldiers have tried to take your life before,” Lotor replied.

            Lotor began running fingers up and down Lance’s back, and after a moment or two of doing this—a moment where Lance’s cheeks burned scarlet, where he tried to do his best to relax into this embrace the same way he would if he was hugging Keith— _soon, just hang in there_ —his other arm shifted.

            Quickly.

            Lance dropped to a crouch, wrenching himself out of Lotor’s grasp, and Lotor’s arm missed him completely. Lance rolled backward and shot back up to his feet, sword drawn in an instant, while Lotor stumbled. Lance saw, then, the item Lotor clutched: a syringe, filled with some kind of orange liquid.

            “What the _hell_ were you doing?” Lance snarled, brandishing his blade.

            Maybe he should’ve played up the romance a little bit more before jumping right into defense, but Lance figured that if Lotor was pulling a syringe on him like this, then all bets were off. There had to be some _reason_ for this. Was he sick of letting Lance run around, when the both of them knew Lance was a traitor?

            What was even in the syringe, anyway?

            “I could ask you the same thing, Lance,” Lotor snapped. “What happened to that gun of yours?”

            “What gun?” Lance replied, knowing full well exactly which gun Lotor was talking about. That soldier—he’d contacted Lotor somehow, he had to have…

            “Don’t be rash. Think wisely about your home planet.”

            Lotor took a step forward. Light caught the edge of the syringe, and the silver tip flashed at Lance. He took an involuntary step back and made himself meet Lotor’s gaze.

            “You saw,” Lance said.

            “I did,” Lotor growled. “And if you think, even for a _tick,_ that Earth’s defenses stand a chance against my firepower, you would be _sorely_ mistaken. You’ll soon find this out firsthand.”

            Lotor lunged with the needle. Lance scrambled for the door, hand slamming down on the pad that would open it up when Lotor went in for a tackle. He side-stepped at the last second and let Lotor crash into the wall, syringe smashing into metal and shattering. The liquid spilled across the floor.

            “What the fuck _is that?_ ” Lance demanded, as Lotor got to his feet.

            “Doesn’t matter now, does it?”

            Lotor drew his own sword from his sheath and leveled it at Lance. Lance held up his blade in front of him, defensive, inching away from the door. Lotor moved with him, the two making a slow circle, until Lotor stood in front of the door—Lance’s only exit, now blocked.

            “Stand down,” Lotor ordered, “or I will do _much_ worse than merely _take Earth over._ I’m being _generous_ , Lance. It would do you wise to observe that and make _sensible_ decisions.”

            Lance wasn’t listening. Not fully. He’d mostly tuned Lotor out at the mention of _only_ taking over, not obliterating. Lotor spoke as though he’d _already_ taken steps…and the team _already_ knew of his plans for Earth…

            “You already ordered a strike.”

            Lance’s eyes widened as he spoke, voice far smaller than he’d intended for it to come out.

            “Perhaps I did,” Lotor said, “and perhaps I didn’t. The intensity of the strike depends on how you behave, and you’re leaning _dangerously_ toward total annihilation. But, if you drop the sword and give this up, and do exactly as I say, I will spare your—”

            “Tell me what was in that syringe,” Lance interrupted, eyes cutting back to the shattered tube on the floor, to the liquid sitting on the metal plating. “You obviously weren’t expecting this. You were going to do something to me.”

            Lotor wouldn’t believe him if he started shaking, if his voice started cracking. Lotor would think it another tactic to win over his sympathy, and Lance had fooled him far too many times for it to work now.

            “You have no power over me,” Lotor responded with a shake of his head, and stalked forward.

            Lance, regrettably, hadn’t any room to move back. He shifted one foot and met the end of Lotor’s bed, wood of the frame digging into his lower back. Lotor continued forward, and only stopped when Lance held his blade up, as though it were some kind of threat. Lance knew better. As good as he’d trained up to be, as well as he’d done against the Keith simulation, Lotor had the experience. Lotor had the training.

            “What were you going to do to me?” Lance asked again.

            _Can_ _’t go forward. He’s got his sword in his right hand…if you can dodge to_ your _right_ _…_

            “Nothing serious,” Lotor answered through grit teeth.

            He took another step forward, and another, until his blade met Lance’s.

            “Not good enough,” Lance replied. His voice held firm. “What? Was it supposed to knock me out? Supposed to make me start hallucinating? _What was in that syringe?_ ”

            Another step forward. Lotor towered over Lance. He could so easily have killed him right here, it occurred to Lance. A few quick moves—maybe a sweep of the legs, and swish of his blade—but he didn’t. He kept Lance trapped, bent slightly backward over the bed frame.

            “I told you _it doesn_ _’t matter_ anymore,” Lotor growled.

            Lance shifted his leg forward ever-so-slightly. He kept his eyes on Lotor’s face, and could practically feel the sweat beading on his forehead.

            “If you want me to comply, I just want to know,” Lance said, voice even, far too calm for the situation.

            Lotor hesitated, and Lance took his chance. He hooked his leg around Lotor’s calf at the same time that he shoved forward, and sent Lotor to the floor before the emperor could comprehend what was happening. Then he _bolted,_ leaping over Lotor and making a break for the door. He slammed his hand down on the pad again, and this time, it opened for him. He ducked into the hallway and turned right.

            _This isn_ _’t good._

_You_ _’re so fucked._

_Why the fuck did you do that?_

Lance shook his head.

            “Doesn’t matter,” he whispered to himself. It was this, or getting injected with whatever the hell that orange liquid had been, and Lance liked his autonomy, thank you very much.

            Lance’s feet slid as he turned another corner, a fraction of precious time lost. He stumbled the next few feet until he got back into the groove. He wasn’t quite sure where he was going—the bridge wasn’t a smart move, exactly. Neither was the dining room, or an observation deck. Getting to that one closet would get him back into the vents—

            _Gun. Shit._

            His room was in the opposite direction. He either needed to get past Lotor, or find a different route entirely. And seeing as most of these halls crawled with soldiers, soldiers that could be ordered to hunt him down at any time, well…

            Lance swore under his breath.

            Vents it was.

            Lance ran toward the end of the hall and swung left, as fast footsteps sounded behind him.

            He didn’t need to look back to know who it was.

            _Keep going keep going keep going—_

            Lance stopped dead as guns whined to life. Multiple rows of soldiers blocked off this hallway, and Lotor was coming up behind him, and Earth was set to be attacked, and the team was set to be attacked.

            All of this, because two months ago, Lance couldn’t fire a gun like he was supposed to.

            “Stand down.”

            Lotor sounded breathless. He panted after his statement, but it was no less threatening.

            Lance had two options at this point: be defiant, against soldiers who could take him down in two seconds flat, and against Lotor, who’d have no problem engaging him in battle just to prove that he ruled and Lance was to obey him; or, surrender and hope for the best.

            “Drop the weapon,” Lotor ordered, when Lance didn’t move.

            Lance didn’t look back at the emperor as he dropped his sword and slowly put his hands up, heart jackhammering.

            “Turn around.”

            _Fuck._

            Lance turned slowly, feet shuffling, until he was facing Lotor. His face held no amusement, as Lance expected. Instead, a muscle in his jaw feathered as he glared at Lance with constricted pupils. A vein in his forehead stood out prominently, as did another in his neck.

            _I_ _’m so fucked._

            “Kneel.”

            Lance lowered himself to his knees.

            This wasn’t at all how he’d envisioned the day going. He thought he’d be able to map out more of Central Command, thought he wouldn’t have gotten through to Blue and Red, _certainly_ hadn’t expected contacting the team, and wasn’t prepared for this in the _least._

            “I should kill you for this,” Lotor started, stalking forward, blade swinging by his side. One swing had the blade far too close to Lance. The tip of it grazed his ear, and Lance held back a shiver. “But I’ve wasted far too many resources on you for you to be of no use to me whatsoever.”

            Lance’s teeth worried at his lower lip, because there were a plethora of ways Lotor could make him _useful._

            Lotor signaled for one of the soldiers. Lance’s muscles tightened as the soldier came up behind him and knelt down, and placed a hand on his shoulder, grip iron-hard.

            _No._

            “Lotor, wait—”

            Lotor held up a hand, and the soldier stopped moving.

            “ _What_ do you want now?” Lotor sounded exasperated, and almost…bored with the whole thing.

            Lance opened his mouth, then closed it. Begging wouldn’t do him much good—not with Lotor as pissed off as he was.

            “I’ll…I’ll do whatever you want, I swear, but please—”

            “You’ve violated my trust far too many times, Lance,” Lotor interrupted.

            He crouched down until he was about eye level with Lance. He reached out a hand and grabbed at the bottom of Lance’s face, squishing it in his fingers. Lance held still, stomach churning as Lotor smiled at him, baring his teeth.

            “You’re still a _beautiful_ specimen,” Lotor remarked, “but your _antics_ …are impossible to deal with. A shame, really, for your looks to be wasted on…well, the rest of you.”

            Lance scowled as Lotor let go of his face and stood back up.

            “I’ll be seeing you again soon, my dear,” Lotor said, “but for now…go ahead.”

            Lotor spun his hand in a circle.

            “W-Wait—no, no, no—no!”

            Something pinched Lance’s neck. He thrashed as he tried to get away from the soldier, but their grip on his shoulder turned crushing, hard enough where Lance thought his bones might’ve broken if he moved another inch.

            Luckily, whatever he’d been injected with took care of his movement issue.

            Lance’s muscles went numb, one by one, starting at his neck and spreading through the rest of him. The soldier let him go, and Lance pitched forward. He barely caught himself as his arms and hands tingled, and then went slack. As his sense of touch faded, so did the rest of his senses. His ears rang, and began failing him. The soldiers sounded further and further away the more he strained to hear them, and the more he strained to hear Lotor.

            At the same time, his senses of smell and taste practically vanished, while his vision blurred and darkened. Lance wheezed, and couldn’t grasp at his chest.

            _Can_ _’t breathe—can’t see—Blue—Red—_

            Moving—he was moving. Maybe?

            Was someone carrying him?

            _Please—help me—_

            He couldn’t feel them. They were there, he was sure of it, just from the way something under his skin felt as though it were being pulled. Until, of course, that sensation faded, too, along with Lance’s consciousness.

* * *

            Less than two days.

            The room buzzed with activity as the Paladins got moving. Coran had already excused himself back to the bridge, so he could start plugging coordinates and schematics into the ship’s systems. Allura pulled up several holoscreens at once, fingers flying over them all. Images. Maps. Documents. Tiva and Pidge, meanwhile, were still going at something on their computer. The viewing screen flashed with words that moved too quickly for Keith to decipher—not to mention, most words were in Altean. Pidge’s small bit of understanding of the language was still leagues better than the rest of the Paladins’, which didn’t help much. Shiro, meanwhile, had pulled Matt, Luce, and Olia off to the side, and was speaking to them quietly, hands a flurry of motion.

            “Hey, buddy.”

            Keith looked up as Hunk pulled out the chair next to him and sat down. Neither of them had much to do while the other diplomats talked among themselves, a few shooting looks in their direction.

            “You alright?” Hunk asked.

            Not by a longshot.

            Too much was riding on this rescue, and there were too many loose threads to tie. The topic of Lotor’s assassination still bounced around in Keith’s head. Whether or not they rescued Lance, and got Blue and Red back, Lotor would have to be dealt with. If not now, then further along as the war progressed. If he lived through this confrontation, what would he do to the galaxies? What would he do to the _Paladins?_

            If he died…what would the _universe_ do?

            “No,” Keith admitted. “But are any of us?”

            Hunk considered the question, and then sat back. He patted Keith’s shoulder. “I guess not.”

            Silence settled between them again. Hunk didn’t let go of Keith’s shoulder, and Keith was grateful for it. It helped to keep him grounded, and helped him to focus.

            _Rescue is priority one._

            They’d established that much. Realistically, it meant recovering Blue and Red from Central Command, but the other diplomats had heard Keith’s promise—he wasn’t leaving that base without Lance. He’d put up a physical fight if he had to, but he wasn’t coming home without him. He’d suffered far too much at Lotor’s hands to be left there.

            Keith knew what leaving Lance behind would do to his morale.

            Maybe the diplomats weren’t completely on board with it, but the Paladins were, and at the end of the day, they were the ones who made the decisions.

            “Alright, everyone,” Allura said. She clapped her hands to gather the room’s attention. Conversations halted, bodies ceased movement. Allura looked around at each person gathered. “So.”

            She launched into a brief review of everything they knew so far—all of Lotor’s tactics in the past month, the most current plans he had, what Lance had told them.

            “Our goal is two teams: one for distraction, and one to strike,” Allura said. “Ideally, we’ll have each Paladin prepared for the strike on Central Command. Once we recover the Blue and Red Lions, we’ll be able to form Voltron once more. The Paladins have also all _been_ to Central Command before, and have dealt with Lotor firsthand.”

            “And what would this distraction team do?” Ryner asked, leaning forward curiously.

            Allura glanced at Pidge and gave her a nod. Moments later, a diagram appeared on the screen. On one half of the screen was the Milky Way, and on the other side was an image of Central Command. Multiple circles moved in toward the Milky Way.

            “Lotor has troops positioned to strike Earth at any given moment,” Allura said. “As Matt said earlier, Earth has defenses prepared. However, seeing as Earth has been…technologically lacking, humanity will need extra supports, in case Lotor decides to go through with his strike as he plans. He knows we’ve been gathering allies, and if he sees allied and rebel ships headed toward the Milky Way to drive out his forces, he’ll have no choice but to retaliate to stop them. This will keep him distracted long enough for us to slip into Central Command.”

            New dots appeared on the viewing screen. Where the first dots had been a cyan, these ones were a deep purple. The two sets of dots converged on each other, while three more dots—green, yellow, and black in color—gunned for Central Command.

            “What about the attack led by Commander Varx?” Queen Paveir spoke up.

            “Our aim is to be gone before she arrives,” Allura said, “and to keep a few rebel ships here to guard the castle. Our firepower should be enough to hold out.”

            Keith frowned, and then slowly put his hand up.

            “Keith?” Allura asked.

            “Yeah, uh,” Keith started, “if Commander Varx gets here, and we’re not here to fight her off…won’t Lotor put two and two together and figure out where we went? That’s not exactly the stealthiest move—”

            “Do you have a better plan?” the milky-eyed diplomat cut in.

            “Hey—” Shiro started, but Keith put a hand up again. Shiro and the diplomat both fell silent, eyes on him.

            “I do, actually,” Keith said, and stood up. “I think we let Varx think she’s won, and then hijack the ship.”

            A few whispers went up.

            “Quiet,” Allura said, and then turned to Keith. “Keith, elaborate. Please.”

            “Basically, we’re getting into Central Command in one of their own ships. We need to get the Lions into Varx’s ship. Ideally, we hijack the ship and get the Lions in _ourselves,_ but if Varx gets them first…let her. We just need to get in there, too. We take out Varx, we gain control, we let Central Command think they’ve got a victory. Then we’re into Central Command, no problem. We attack from the inside,” Keith explained.

            “If I remember correctly,” the scarred diplomat asked, “wasn’t sneaking around in the Empire what _started_ this mess? How do we know it won’t have the same outcome?”

            It was a valid question, Keith had to admit.

            “Different scenario,” Keith answered. “We’re armed, and we’ve got more people going in. And we know exactly what we’re getting into, this time around.”

            “I, for one, think this is a great plan,” Tiva said.

            Keith glanced back at her. She smiled thinly at him, and Keith gave her a smile of his own.

            “I’m on board,” Hunk said.

            Slowly, a few of the other diplomats murmured their agreement, while others nodded, and a few even grinned at Keith.

            “Once we’re in,” Shiro said, grabbing the room’s attention, and Keith let his shoulders slouch once eyes were off of him, “we’ll need to split up. I think we’re going to need a few people to come with us—like Tiva?”

            “Oh, this just gets better and better,” Tiva remarked. “Count me in.”

            Shiro nodded to her.

            “There are several priorities,” Shiro went on. “We need our red and blue bayards back, the Lions, and Lance. And, if someone can swing it…I feel we should still keep assassinating Lotor on the table. I’m not saying we go out of our way to get to him, but it’s more than likely he’ll be near Lance or the Lions.”

            Shiro turned toward the head of the table.

            “Allura, Keith, I want you two to recover the bayards and the Lions,” Shiro said.

            “What?” Keith asked before he could stop himself. “Why—”

            “Besides Lance, you’re the only one here with a strong enough connection to Red to pilot him,” Shiro said. “Trust me, Keith, I wouldn’t place you there if I didn’t have to.”

            Keith tightened his jaw before he could say anything else. He gave in with a nod and crossed his arms. Then he raised his eyebrows, motioning Shiro to continue.

            “Hunk and I will go after Lance,” Shiro said. “Lotor’s been itching for a fight with me for a long time. If I can draw him away from Lance, Hunk can go in for a rescue. Hunk _also_ has long-range capabilities with his bayard, which is what we’re lacking in Lance’s absence.”

            Shiro met gazes with Keith, and Keith let his shoulders relax a little more. He trusted Shiro, and he trusted Hunk.

            “Pidge, Tiva,” Shiro said, “we’re going to need someone to keep track of our routes and direct us, and we’re going to need someone to get into the system and override it. That means door panels, hangar bays—whatever it takes to get us in and out of there with minimal fighting.”

            “Are six people going to be enough?” Luce asked.

            Shiro took in a breath and exhaled. “Ideally.”

            “And what if this strike fails?” the kelpy-haired diplomat interjected.

            Shiro didn’t answer right away. He shot glances at the rest of the team—at Pidge, stilling by the computer; at Hunk, shifting uncomfortably in his chair; at Allura, eyes narrowed; at Keith, arms falling away from his chest and down to his sides, hands curling into his fists.

            “It’s not going to,” Keith said. “It _can_ _’t._ The fate of the universe is depending on this strike. One way or another, it’s going to work.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GETTIN CLOSE Y'ALL
> 
> ALSO PLEASE CHECK OUT THIS FANART  
> 
> 
> it's by [paladin.blue.boy](https://www.instagram.com/paladin.blue.boy/) on instagram and LOOK AT THOSE COLORS, THIS IS SOME OF THE FUCKING PRETTIEST ART I'VE EVER SEEN, THANK YOU SO MUCH 
> 
> :D
> 
> anyway i'm not going to say a word about the next chapter but uhhhh i'm excited for it ;)
> 
> SEE Y'ALL THEN


	31. The One in Which a Deal Gets Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone continues to double-cross everyone. Does the truth even exist?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was gonna add another section to this chapter but uhhh that's gonna be the beginning of the next chapter, so this one's a lil shorter than usual (not by much tho)
> 
>  
> 
> **trigger warning for non-con drug use and lotor still being fucking creepy**

Chapter 31

            Keith couldn’t sleep.

            He found himself tossing and turning, shivering in his bed. At some point in the night he’d gotten up and put Lance’s jacket back on, after having taken it off and hanging it up on the hook next to his own, but it still wasn’t enough. The first time he fell asleep, he woke up after an hour. The second time, he’d been on the edge of a nightmare, and forced his body awake the moment he realized. The third time, the bed was just _too cold_.

            Too cold, and too lonely.

            Yeah, his bed was leagues better than the ship beds and cells and labs he’d been forced to sleep in the month before, but there was still something _missing_ , something inherently _wrong_.

            “Fuck this,” Keith whispered to himself, sitting upright.

            He glanced around the empty room and sighed. He peeled back the covers and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He nearly stuck his feet into his boots, when he spied the pair of fuzzy red lion slippers sitting, untouched, on the floor near the end of the bed. They’d been there since about the time he’d become a Paladin, and he’d never once worn them. The way he saw it, he was sleeping, or he was training, or he was in battle. Even on those days the team took to relax, he busied himself. Slippers weren’t required for swimming, nor were they required for napping.

            _There_ _’s a first time for everything._

            Keith scooted to the other side of the bed, mussing the covers in his wake, and slid his feet into the slippers. The unworn fuzz tickled the spaces between his toes, thick and warm, and Keith wondered then why he’d never tried this before.

            He shook his head to clear the thought and rose to his feet. He padded toward the door, pulling Lance’s jacket tighter around him as the cold air of the ship nipped at him. The door slid open and let him into the empty hallways, pale light guiding his way around.

            He had no set destination. The training deck crossed his mind, but between his exhaustion, and the mission coming up in the afternoon, it wouldn’t have been a wise decision to run himself ragged cutting down the bots. He passed by the closed doors, hands jammed into his pockets. Not a peep came from behind them—the others were all likely asleep, and none of them had the same penchant he did to train when he was tense.

            Keith ended up in another empty wing of the castle. It was the furthest he’d wandered in…just about the entire time he was here. Saving the universe didn’t leave much time for exploration.

            He moved with slow strides, coming up on different doors. Most of them were closets of some sort—clothes, untouched for who-knew-how-long; extra weapons supplies, which Keith took special note of; food storage, probably expired, something Keith would have to mention to Hunk. A few rooms, though, were more like offices. Dusty computers, chairs, filing cabinets.

            Keith left the wing with the sense that these rooms weren’t for him to touch.

            Had Allura ever been down here? She or Coran had to know about them. Had they decided not to touch them, or did they just not have the time, either?

            _Shake it off._

            He was supposed to be clearing his head, not overthinking about something like this.

            Keith rounded the corner to the next hall. He stopped to peer inside of the first room he opened. The room was small, circular, and nothing but window. Even the floor paneling was glass. All around him, Keith saw nothing but the universe stretching out around the castleship.

            It would do.

            Keith shut the door and shuffled deeper into the room, and sat against one of the walls. He drew his knees up to his chest and propped his chin.

            Back on Earth, some of his most sleepless nights had him climbing up to the roof of his shack. He’d stargaze for hours, picking out each constellation, trying to remember what he’d been taught about the myths behind them before giving up and rewriting them himself. Here, he saw none of those constellations. His eyes roved over the stars before him, drawing thin lines between them until he lost track of where he’d begun.

            Eventually, his eyelids grew heavy. Keith leaned back, head gently thudding against the wall, and soon enough, blissfully dreamless sleep claimed him.

* * *

            His mind woke up to an unresponsive body.

            On Earth, Lance would occasionally read of people who slipped into comas, people whose minds woke up but whose bodies stayed asleep for longer. He often wondered what that would be like, being awake and unable to do anything about it.

            Now, he had an idea of sorts.

            His senses were all there—he was sitting, restrained, in a chair that felt…leathery? It definitely wasn’t metal, that was for sure. He still inhaled the sharp scent of Central Command, mostly metal and desperation. He heard people moving about the room around him, talking in hushed voices. Lance guessed they were speaking pure Galran—he couldn’t understand a word they were saying.

            He just couldn’t open his eyes.

            It wasn’t like he’d gone blind—he could plainly see light through his eyelids—and it wasn’t for lack of trying, either.

            Whatever the Galra drugged him with rendered him completely immobile.

            Footsteps clacked against the floors, drawing closer to Lance’s chair, and Lance recognized them immediately as Lotor’s. Revulsion pushed at him, and he would’ve drawn back if he could. Instead, though, he remained completely still—not by choice—as Lotor leaned closer to him. Lance could _feel_ his personal bubble being invaded, felt Lotor’s face inches from his, breath warm…

            And then Lotor stepped back and crossed the room.

            _Red_ _…Blue…are either of you there?_

            He needed to communicate with _someone._ Lance waited for a response, for either of the Lions to assure them that they had his back in all of this, but nothing came of it. Distantly, he felt something tickling the back of his mind, maybe the two of them trying to reach him, and that was it.

            Panic settled underneath his skin. If _they_ couldn’t even get through to him—

            “Open your eyes.”

            Lance hadn’t processed the voice or the command before his eyes opened of their own accord. He found himself looking forward, unable to glance to either side. Lotor stood halfway between the chair and the wall, cocking his head, studying Lance curiously, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.

            “Say my name,” Lotor said, and crossed his arms.

            “Lotor.”

            The name tumbled effortlessly out of Lance’s mouth, monotone. Lotor nodded, smile fading slightly as he strode across the room, out of Lance’s line of vision. No matter how hard Lance willed himself to follow, his eyes wouldn’t budge. He resigned himself to staring at the empty wall before him, while Lotor and others—presumably scientists—milled about behind him. Glasses clinked. Fingers tapped at keyboards. Liquid splashed. There were a host of other sounds Lance couldn’t even hope to identify before Lotor walked around the front of the chair again.

            “You,” Lotor said, and pointed to someone Lance couldn’t see, “give an order.”

            Maybe it was some side effect of the drug—maybe it had rewired Lance to _understand_ which orders were for him, and which were not, because his mouth didn’t so much as even _twitch._

            Whoever Lotor had pointed to took a moment to think, and then said, “State your real name.”

            _No._

            “Lance Charles Alejo McClain.”

            What _was_ this, an interrogation session?

            … _Fuck, please don_ _’t let this be an interrogation session._

            Despite everything, Lance was grateful Lotor couldn’t see the terror in his eyes, couldn’t feel the way his bones felt like they were seconds away from snapping under the tension of being unable to move. He was certain if he had control over his body, he would be digging his fingers into his seat.

            “Interesting,” Lotor remarked. “More than the Eruda Center gave us. I’ll need someone looking into that soon. Now, someone release him.”

            The restraints around Lance’s wrists and ankles clicked, and fell away, freeing him to move.

            Move he did not; no matter how many times Lance tried to get his body to answer to him, it would. Not. Respond.

            Lotor sauntered back up to the chair, and Lance’s gaze remained firmly locked straight ahead. Lotor knelt down before him, until he was eye level with Lance. He smiled, the light catching the fangs in either corner of his mouth.

            “Well, look where we are,” Lotor said. “Right where we started. I’m in control, and you—” Lotor moved in closer, bracing his hands on top of Lance’s arms, “—are _under_ my control.”

            Lotor continued moving in, until his face was less than an inch from Lance’s. Lance’s every last nerve was screaming, everything in him aching to get up, run, fight back, do _something_ instead of just _sitting there_ and letting this happen.

            “You are to listen to no orders but _mine_.” Lotor’s voice had dropped, so low Lance himself could barely hear it. “Say _yes, my love,_ and show me you understand.”

            “Yes, my love.”

            Shame and revulsion pooled in Lance’s gut as Lotor smiled again, drew back, and then called for another one of the people in the room to come forward with a gun. Lance didn’t have much time to study it as it moved across his field of vision. It was a rifle, that much he could gather.

            “Pick up the gun and rise,” Lotor instructed.

            Lance’s body moved, fluid where he expected disjointed motion. His hands already knew how to hold a gun—this one’s weight felt just off to him, but he supposed it didn’t matter when he had no control. He stood at full height, back rod-straight. Lotor walked in a slow circle, inspecting him, until he came back around to the front of him again. He nodded to someone Lance couldn’t see, who read out an order loud and clear.

            “Shoot Emperor Lotor. Shoot to kill.”

            Something almost giddy washed over Lance in that moment, and faded just as quickly. His body didn’t snap into motion. He didn’t raise the gun. He certainly didn’t shoot Lotor.

            Lotor’s grin widened. “So it works exactly as it should.”

            He motioned for the people standing behind Lance to do something, and took the gun out of his hands at the same time someone laid hands on his shoulders. Lance felt the familiar pinch of a needle entering his neck, and everything went dark.

* * *

            He woke up to a hand on his shoulder.

            “Hey—Keith, you need to get up, bud.”

            Keith’s reaction was automatic. He swung a fist out, stopping inches from Shiro’s face when he realized that he wasn’t being attacked. To his credit, Shiro said nothing of it, and instead offered a hand to help Keith to his feet. Keith took it, grunting. Cold air rushed at him as his limbs moved free from the positions they’d been in all night, scrunched up to preserve as much warmth as he could.

            “Thanks,” Keith said quietly.

            Shiro nodded, and peered curiously around the tiny observation deck. “No problem…now how did you end up in here?”

            “How did you find me is the better question,” Keith muttered under his breath, and then realized he’d voiced the thought aloud. Shiro shot him a look, one Keith refused to shrink under. Finally, Shiro gave in and sighed.

            “We _couldn_ _’t_ find you, and we were about to start panicking when Allura did a sweep of the ship for your energy signature. You came up in here. How did you find this place, Keith?”

            Keith shrugged. Lance’s jacket slipped down his shoulders at that, and Keith pulled it on tighter. “I don’t know, I just…found it. I…” Keith hesitated, shut his eyes momentarily, took in a breath to ground himself.

            “I couldn’t sleep,” Keith admitted. “Being all alone, in my room…it just wasn’t working. I knew I couldn’t go to the training deck because I needed to be rested for today, so I just…wandered, I guess. I found this part of the ship, and I found this place.”

            Keith turned away from Shiro and toward the windows again, eyes scanning over the universe before him.

            This space was peaceful. Keith wouldn’t have minded coming back here, on a day when there was nothing going on. Instead of crashing in his room or the lounge, or training himself until he was hunched over and panting and guzzling water on the training deck, he could sit here. Watch the skies. Find new constellations and track them in every galaxy the team ended up in. Maybe he wouldn’t have to sit here alone. Maybe—

            _You need him back, first._

            Keith’s shoulder’s slumped at that, and Shiro took notice.

            “Keith?” A hand came down. Shiro relaxed his tentative grip when Keith didn’t shrug him off. “Something you wanna talk about?”

            “I…”

            The words caught in Keith’s throat. Shiro waited patiently, as Keith dragged in a breath, loosed it, and continued on. “I just wish I could have _done_ something more. I—this entire situation is _my fault,_ Shiro.”

            Keith wondered how many of the glittering dots ahead were stars, and how many were planets. If any were planets that had fallen, or had gotten obliterated, and the light hadn’t had a chance to reach the castleship. Wondered if Lance had ever set foot on any of them in the last two months, at the head of some military campaign he’d wanted no part in.

            “What do you mean?” Shiro asked.

            Keith hated the forlorn little whimper that followed up before he could stop it.

            “I’m the reason Lotor has Lance right now,” Keith said quietly. “If I hadn’t gone down on Tarvin Three…I could have at least bought him time to escape. Even…even when all of this _started,_ he was protecting _me,_ Shiro. I…I went down, and he had to cover for me, and if I hadn’t…we could have been out of there. None of this would be happening, a-and Lance would be _here,_ and…”

            Keith fell silent. All he could do was breathe and try and hide away in Lance’s jacket. He’d cried himself dry, he guessed, when tears didn’t sting in the corners of his eyes, and all of his reserves of fury had been burned out.

            “Keith…”

            Shiro’s hand tightened on his shoulder, for a moment, and then fell away. He stepped away from Keith and ran a hand through his hair. Keith looked on.

            “I’m not saying what happened to you and Lance was good,” Shiro finally said, exhaling a breath, “but it could have been a lot worse.”

            Keith opened his mouth to speak, but Shiro kept going. Maybe it was good that Shiro had—Keith numbed, limbs tingling where normally a fire would rage.

            “If Lance had gotten away on Tarvin Three, there’s no telling what would have happened to you. Lotor would have lost out on his end of whatever deal he struck with the chancellor’s daughter, which means he wouldn’t have had to hold up her end. If you were alone…you might not have come back at all.”

            _This isn_ _’t about me. This was never about me._

            “What about the first time, Shiro?” Keith asked. “What about the battle when we thought we finally took down Lotor? If I’d been _up,_ Lance wouldn’t have had to defend me, we would’ve come back to the castle, and we could have been dealing with him as a _team._ Lotor would never have formed that _creepy obsession_ —”

            “It’s too late to go back and undo things.”

            Shiro didn’t raise his voice. Didn’t look at Keith. He’d crossed his arms and turned to face the windows, and Keith mimicked, eyes landing on a cluster of distant stars, glowing a sort of green.

            “We’ve all made our choices,” Shiro went on. “Maybe not all of them turned out the way we’d expected. But we don’t have time to dwell on them anymore. It’s time for us to keep moving and fix things.”

            Keith saw it, then, out of the corner of his eye. The downward curve of Shiro’s mouth, the hardness in his eyes. He’d been through just as much turmoil. Keith realized, too, that he hadn’t even heard of everything the team had been doing while he was gone. They knew the details of his adventures, and Keith had virtually no knowledge of whatever battles they’d fought.

            “You’re right,” Keith said.

            Shiro glanced at him, eyebrows raised.

            “We can’t undo everything by going back. We undo it by moving forward,” Keith continued. “What are we doing?”

            Something decidedly brighter crossed Shiro’s face. He turned to fully face Keith, while Keith crossed his arms and stepped toward him.

            “Allura needs us suited up and on the bridge,” Shiro said. “Commander Varx is set to attack us at any time, and we need to be ready.”

            Keith nodded. “Let’s go.”

* * *

            Varx remained loyal to Lotor a lot longer than most of the other commanders had.

            While some of them talked of overthrowing him and seizing the throne of the empire for themselves, she kept quiet. While others ridiculed him and boasted about how maybe they’d all stage a coup and take him out for themselves, she hadn’t breathed a word. Nobody planned their advances in quite the same way; there just had to be some method to Lotor’s madness, as humans apparently said.

            Her tipping point came the moment Lotor waited until the Red Paladin was actively being broken out of a lab to order the kill, and then switched his orders _again_ when he was recaptured on a prison ship.

            Needless to say, she’d been biding her time, and kept her rising fury a secret from her comrades, who’d come to know her as one of the last few of Lotor’s puppets. When she started this journey approximately a day and a half ago, under the orders to kill each Paladin on sight and seize the Lions, she had a plan all set. She’d been over it with the crew, and they knew exactly where to hit the ship, who to target first, how to go about picking off any allies…

            And then Lotor had contacted them with new plans.

            _I want the Paladins brought to me alive, one way or another,_ he’d said. _I want to humiliate them before they die, and I want them to suffer._

            Varx didn’t remind him that she could do a fine job of that herself, and so could her crew. Just accepted the order with no more than a _Vrepit Sa, Your Imperial Majesty,_ signed off, and got to work on a new plot. Lotor wanted them brought to him alive? Fine. _Done._

            Varx would do her job, and couldn’t be held accountable for any consequences Lotor may have faced due to his _own_ decisions. Certainly not fatal consequences. Certainly not consequences that would get her on the throne once and for all.

            “Establish a transmission to the Castle of Lions,” Varx commanded one of the officers still on the bridge, manning one of the computer stations.

            “Yes, Commander,” the officer murmured without so much as a glance up, fingers flying over keypads and holoscreens. The bridge dimmed as a new screen came up before Varx, the words _Establishing Transmission_ blinking slowly at her in Galran.

            The screen illuminated after about a dobosh or two of waiting—precious doboshes lost, but Varx was on Lotor’s time now, so it wasn’t like it particularly mattered anymore—and the Paladins appeared before Varx. Every last one of them, minus the Blue Paladin, in full armor. A few other figures gathered in the background, too far for Varx to distinguish any of them individually.

            “Paladins of Voltron,” Varx greeted, “I am Commander Varx.”

            _“So we’ve heard.”_ Princess Allura, the Pink Paladin, Princess of Altea—Varx still hadn’t decided how to address her yet—scowled, clearly caught off-guard. _“What is the purpose of this transmission?”_

            “I come to you with a proposition.”

            Varx made her voice as clear and authoritative as she could, while the Paladins before her shifted on their feet. The Red and Black Paladins had been whispering to themselves, but now fell silent. Varx almost smirked at the sight of the Red Paladin; for how hellish he’d been in the transmissions Varx had seen, he still managed to stand tall here, still defiant as ever against the Empire.

            “Emperor Lotor has been…rather annoying, the last few movements, wouldn’t you say?”

            _“What do you want from us? Get to the point,”_ the Black Paladin interrupted.

            Varx paused, let herself smile mockingly. “Impatient, are we?”

            The Red Paladin twitched, and the Black Paladin’s arm shifted toward him. Varx scanned over the rest of the group, then; at the Pink Paladin’s right, the Green and Yellow Paladins exchanged a look, before the Green Paladin turned toward the screen with crossed arms.

            _“If you’re not going to tell us anything important—”_

            “Oh, but I _am_ ,” Varx interrupted the shortest Paladin. “I’m not in the business of lying. Emperor Lotor ordered an attack on your castleship, and my _original_ orders were to kill every last Paladin and ally, and seize the remaining three Lions of Voltron as property of the Empire. However…plans change.”

* * *

             _“However…plans change.”_

            Varx’s smile sickened Keith.

            “What do you mean _plans change?_ ” he bit out, despite Shiro’s arm inching upward and in front of him. Hell, Shiro had to be itching to lash out the same way he was. That much was clear by the set to his jaw, and the way he _didn_ _’t_ shoot Keith a look that told him to stand down.

            _“Simple, Paladin. I was given orders, and then I was given new orders.”_ Varx took another dramatic pause, and Keith wondered, bitterly, briefly, if Lotor required every last one of his subordinates to go through fucking theater training before they got their jobs. _“Emperor Lotor ordered me to kill you. Now he wants you brought to Central Command alive, so he can, and I quote,_ humiliate you in death and make you suffer _._ _”_

            By now, Keith understood Lotor’s games.

            He leaned back to look behind Shiro and Allura; across the way, on the other side of the group, Hunk did the same, eyes hard. Their gazes met, and Keith could tell Hunk was thinking the same thing.

            _“So,”_ Varx continued, and Keith snapped forward again, _“I’ve decided to follow his orders. I’ll bring all of you to Central Command alive, just as he’s asked. He gave no descriptions as to the manner in which you were to be brought to him. How does a direct route to your Blue Paladin, unbound and free to carry weapons, sound to all of you?”_

            _Too good to be true,_ Keith almost replied.

            “Like a trap,” Hunk deadpanned.

            “Yeah,” Shiro agreed, and took a tiny step forward. “How do we know this isn’t some ploy? How do we know this isn’t _another_ plot by Lotor?”

            Varx’s face dropped, just long enough for Keith to see the spectacularly taken-aback expression she wore, as if the idea that her scheme was a ploy was completely and utterly unthinkable. Like she hadn’t even realized the people who’d been crossed and double-crossed and betrayed across multiple galaxies would be skeptical of a plan coming from someone set to attack them at any time.

            “What can you do to prove to us that we aren’t going to be played? Again?” Hunk asked.

            Varx didn’t answer right away. She paused to consider the question, while Pidge seized the silence.

            “What’s the catch?” she asked.

            _“Catch?”_ Varx questioned.

            Pidge nodded. “You want something out of this. What are we getting into?”

            Another pause from Varx, then: _“I want to see Emperor Lotor removed just as badly as most other people in this Empire. I feel that your crew has the motivation and the means to succeed, and I wish to aid in Lotor’s removal in any way I can. If you’ll agree to it, my ship should be reaching the Castle of Lions in the next…varga or two, I would say. Do we have a deal?”_

            None of this sat well with Keith, and he couldn’t imagine it sat well with any of the others.

            Still, no one protested when Allura nodded. “It’s a deal, then. We’ll be seeing you again shortly.”

            Nobody spoke again until the transmission cut off, and the room lightened around them.

            “Why did we just agree to that? We’re just gonna walk right onto a Galra ship and _hand over the Lions—_ ”

            “Hunk,” Allura interrupted, “I know. We’re also going to execute our own plan anyway. Commander Varx is merely speeding up the process. Everyone, get ready. Once she arrives, we need to go. Immediately.”

            The group broke off. Keith started for his chair, prepared to pull up holoscreens and see what he could find on Commander Varx—anything from battle strategies to personality traits, _something_ he could use against her when it came down to it—but Shiro followed him.

            “Keith.”

            Keith turned; Shiro had his hand outstretched, offering up the black bayard.

            “I want you to have this when we get to Central Command. You need a weapon.”

            Keith blinked at it, and slowly shook his head. He gently pushed Shiro’s hand away. Shiro frowned, and let his hand drop back to his side.

            “I don’t need it,” Keith said. He gestured to the belt he’d strapped on around his waist—the sheath with his Marmora blade. “I’ve got this, and once Allura and I get the bayards, I’ll have that, too. I would try giving that to Allura, though—”

            “I already did,” Shiro interrupted, “because I thought about your knife. She made me try and give this to you, because she says she’ll be fine with her staff.”

            “Well, then you keep it,” Keith replied. “You’re gonna be in the Black Lion, anyway. I don’t know what good Allura and I having it will do if we’re in Green with Pidge, and then in Red and Blue.”

            _And then in Red and Blue._

            This was happening. In just a matter of hours they’d be headed to Central Command, and then they’d get their Lions back.

            They’d get _Lance_ back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welp,,,
> 
> if the next chapter contains as much as i'm planning, it'll be a longer one, so forgive me if the next update takes a lil while longer than usual
> 
> but uhhh yeah i have multiple snippets of scenes for the next chapter planned soooo get excited?? bc i'm excited so >;)
> 
> see y'all in the next one


	32. The One in Which Plans Get Shaken Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A skirmish before the Big Bad Final Battle prompts a small change in plans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lololololol this was gonna contain more scenes but if i added more scenes it would be twice the length of a normal chapter so i decided to do the thing i said i wasn't gonna do and split them
> 
> **trigger warnings for character injury, mildly graphic fight scenes (two things not new to this fic by any means), uhhh i think that's it**

Chapter 32

            One hour later, Keith found himself sitting against a control panel in Green’s cockpit.

            Tiva sat across the way, back turned toward him as she fiddled with the holoscreens Pidge had given her access to. Allura, meanwhile, hovered over the Green Paladin, seated in her pilot’s chair, waiting for Varx’s ship to come closer.

            The commander was taking her sweet old time moving in, giving everyone a full view of her vessel’s hulking form. It wasn’t as big as the castleship, but compared to most other commanders’ ships, this one claimed victory, no contest. The perfect ship to store several Lions of Voltron in.

            “I don’t trust a word Varx says,” Tiva remarked, voice cutting across tense silence as she closed down one holoscreen and pulled up another, full of text Keith couldn’t understand. “She’s one of the last commanders to remain loyal to Lotor, and she’s been vicious even before she moved up the ranks. She’s not doing this to help us. She’s doing this to help herself, I’m sure of it.”

            “I have no doubt about that,” Allura spoke up. “We go in, and we seize immediate control.”

            Pidge and Tiva murmured their agreement, both preoccupied with what they were working on. Keith nodded, mind on the operation. As planned, Shiro and Hunk would go after Lance, while he and Allura went to recover the bayards, Red, and Blue. Pidge and Tiva would be guiding them all, breaking into the computer system that powered Central Command, taking down the necessary barriers to get them in and out as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, Luce volunteered a small group of Obscurity ships to serve as a distraction, while Matt, Queen Paveir, and Ryner led the distraction on the Earthen front.

            So many moving pieces.

            So many places to go wrong.

            One glaringly obvious hole in the plan: Lotor.

            _Officially,_ they’d covered that hole—at least, according to Shiro. Lotor wouldn’t be dealt with at the present time; he was for later, when the whole team was back together, and they could form Voltron once more. As for contingencies, when Lotor inevitably reared his ugly head, well…they’d kill if they could, but first priority was getting away. Having the team in one piece was leagues more important than a potentially futile assassination attempt, or a successful assassination attempt that left the Empire’s power structure in shambles and put Voltron at the center of it all.

            _“Paladins of Voltron, prepare to board.”_

            The message blasted through Green’s comms system, loud and clear. Varx’s ship drew closer; as it did, Keith spied a hatch on one of the sides of the ship, big enough for several Voltron Lions to fly through. He rose to his feet and flanked the other side of Pidge’s chair, peering over her shoulder out the main window as Green slowly accelerated.

            _“Is everyone ready?”_ Shiro asked over the Paladins’ comms. _“Once we’re in, we don’t stop until we bring everyone back home.”_

            _“I’m ready,”_ Hunk responded. _“Everyone in Green ready?”_

            “Moving now,” Pidge answered.

            Keith expected extra words on Shiro’s part—encouragement, a final run-through of their plans—but got nothing but tense silence as Green drifted forward. In the side window, Keith spotted Black and Yellow—Green and Yellow were converging on Black’s left and right, respectively, and all three Lions drew ever-closer to the now-fully opened hatch in the side of Varx’s ship.

            The small group of fighters Varx had brought with her held their fire as the Lions entered, side-by-side. Black touched down first with a loud clang, followed by Yellow, and finally Green. Something hissed, and the lights in the hangar brightened as the hatch shut, sealing the Paladins and Lions inside of the ship.

            “Luce,” Pidge whispered, “in about two doboshes, start moving in.”

            Luce and her group of Obscurities had been tailing from a distance, each ship rigged with a cloaking device from the many Pidge had taken to creating since she figured out how.

            _“Copy,”_ Luce responded.

            Around the group, Green powered down, only opening the hatch to let the group out. Keith resisted the urge to draw his knife from its sheath; the plan, at the moment, was to come off as friendly. No combat until absolutely necessary. Until Shiro gave them the order.

            “Varx is coming,” Allura said, with a glance toward the doors leading into the rest of the ship. “Let’s go.”

            Keith peered out the window, and sure enough, the commander was striding in, a group of soldiers flanking her and bringing up behind her. Each and every one of them was armed, with laser blasters that appeared more powerful than what Keith had last seen Lotor’s subordinates carrying.

            “Guards up,” Keith murmured, dragging his eyes away from the window. He met Pidge’s gaze; she gave him a terse nod, and the two of them turned and followed Allura and Tiva down Green’s hatch.

            Allura was the only one of them who openly carried her weapon—her staff, a staff she’d claim was no more than a royal scepter up until it came down to battle. Tiva, meanwhile, had a laser gun strapped to her back, and the other Paladins all kept their bayards tucked away in storage.

            “Paladins, welcome,” Varx greeted, voice echoing around the hangar as the group of Paladins linked back up. Shiro took his place at Allura’s right, and Tiva remained on her left, while Hunk, Keith, and Pidge kept behind them, Pidge squished in the middle.

            “Commander Varx, the pleasure is ours,” Allura responded, and stepped forward.

            Varx broke away from her own squad of soldiers to shake Allura’s hand. The commander dwarfed the princess, yet Allura didn’t so much as flinch, not even when Varx’s grip on her hand turned borderline crushing. She just squeezed back, eyes narrowed, and didn’t let go until Varx did first.

            Varx drew back, pausing to study Allura momentarily, before she turned to the rest of the group. Her gaze wandered over each of the Paladins, eyes lingering for a few seconds longer on Tiva. They narrowed fractionally, and her mouth twitched, but then she shook her head.

            “Come with me,” she said, and waved dismissively in the direction of her soldiers. “No more than protection. They’re harmless.”

            “Harmless my ass,” Pidge muttered under her breath, at the same time that Hunk whispered, “Yeah, protection for _her._ ”

            Shiro heard them. He tossed a look over his shoulder, one that said both _I agree_ and _shut up before she hears you,_ and then faced forward again as Varx led the group out of the hangar. Green, Yellow, and Black’s particle barriers flickered to life as some of Varx’s soldiers moved in, and surrounded them with guns raised. Keith cast one final look at them before righting himself and resigning himself to everything that lay ahead.

            Keith’s senses kicked into high gear as soldiers filled in the empty space behind him, Hunk, and Pidge. A glance from the corner of his eye told him these soldiers, too, had their guns at the ready. Anywhere he went— _protection, protection, protection._ But when had safety measures like this _ever_ protected him?

            “You’ll just have to do one thing for me,” Varx said as they walked along. Her voice was the only sound besides the stomping and tapping of everyone’s shoes, ringing out loudly for everyone to hear. “I _will_ need to conduct one transmission with Emperor Lotor to reassure him that I’ve gotten the job done. I need proof of that, of course.”

            “Define proof,” Pidge said, fingers twitching as her hand drifted down to her thigh.

            “I’ll need you all to be present for this transmission, acting as prisoners,” Varx answered, and tipped her chin toward Keith. “I understand the Red Paladin has experience with deceiving His Imperial Majesty?”

            Varx stopped, and the group followed suit. Keith stiffened as every eye fell on him, his team sympathetic, the soldiers scrutinizing. Most of them had probably been loyal to Lotor then—deceiving Lotor meant he’d also tricked _them,_ however indirectly. Keith couldn’t imagine they’d been _happy_ with it, especially not when he and Lance slipped away and sent the emperor into a rage.

            “Yes…,” Keith said, raising his eyebrows, willing himself to stay calm. “What does that have to do with anything?”

            “Nothing more than that you know firsthand how easy it is to fool the emperor. This should be a simple task, then, shouldn’t it?” the commander answered. Her eyes glinted with something steely; Keith met her gaze and held it. Pidge and Hunk both inched closer to him, and Keith took special note of the way Pidge’s fingers twitched again.

            “I guess,” Keith replied.

            “Good.” Varx turned around without a word more, and continued leading the group to the bridge.

            Keith kept silent as the group walked on, even as Pidge nudged him and gave him a concerned look, even as Hunk set his jaw and laid a murderous gaze upon Varx. There was nothing else left to do in the situation. They couldn’t just _lash out_ with soldiers at their backs—Varx agreed to help them because she didn’t like Lotor, and not because she liked the Paladins. Keith knew, deep down, she’d have no problem turning against them in a second if they became a threat.

            _Not yet. Patience._

            Doors hissed open at the front of the group, drawing Keith’s attention. They walked onto the bridge, Keith taking in the sight of it. It was almost… _generic_ was the best word for it. Even for one of Lotor’s top commanders, it was nothing special, nearly identical to ones he’d been on before, either in a standard raid or as a prisoner.

            “Let’s make this believable, shall we?”

            Varx seemed _far_ too cheery for this. She drew a gun from a holster on her belt and leveled it at the Paladins and Tiva. All of them froze in place, and Varx swung it in either direction, barrel quickly shifting targets.

            “Spread out. One line, let’s go. On your knees.”

            Getting into one line was easy enough, and Keith ended up sandwiched between Shiro and Pidge. The order to kneel was just as simple, and Keith listened to a chorus of armor hitting metal as each one of them hit the ground.

            “Hands behind your backs,” Varx continued, and Keith paused, glancing up at her long enough to shoot a questioning look that she couldn’t see. “I won’t cuff you, but Lotor doesn’t need to know that. Make it known that you aren’t actually restrained, and there _will_ be consequences.”

            The Paladins did as told, arms shifting behind their backs, armor scraping against armor. As they did so, Varx nodded to the soldiers behind them, and the soldiers marched forward in one massive line, guns drawn and trained on the Paladins. Keith’s eyes flitted over them—more guards than there were people on the team Voltron had assembled for this mission, one gun per Paladin, plus extras for caution.

            If things went south, their chances for escape were rapidly dwindling.

            Varx circled the group as they pretended to be restrained, nodding approvingly at times, roughly making adjustments where she saw fit at others. The hair on the back of Keith’s neck stood up as she passed by him, and then by Shiro. Keith glanced in his direction as Varx moved on; his breathing was shallow, and his pupils were constricted.

            “Shiro.” Keith nudged him with his shoulder. Shiro’s head snapped up, eyes wide and unseeing. Slowly, they cleared, and his expression changed from terror to shame.

            “Sorry, I...the team…”

            Shiro’s eyes drifted beyond Keith, to Pidge and Hunk. A glance in the other direction, at Allura and Tiva. Then his head dropped again, eyes on his knees, on the ground.

            “Hey, it’s okay,” Keith whispered. He cut his eyes once to Varx, ordering one of her officers to get a transmission to Central Command going. “Everything’s gonna be fine.”

            His wrists rested against the hilt of his blade. One wrong move from anyone here and he’d draw it, long before any of the soldiers behind him could get the jump on him and confiscate it, and discover the mark on it. They could glimpse it for themselves when it was buried halfway—

            _Stop. Don_ _’t think like that._

            There would be no bloodshed, if things went according to plan. They just had to get through this transmission, and then they were smooth sailing.

            “Alright, Paladins, keep quiet,” Varx snapped at that moment, and Keith returned his attention to her, and her rigid posture as she took up position in front of them, in front of the bridge windows. The room darkened, while a screen brightened the main window, and red Galran words slowly pulsed in front of them.

            _Establishing Transmission._

            It didn’t take long. The words vanished abruptly, and not even a second later, they were replaced with a face. Keith’s heart sped up as he took in Lotor, whose brief irritation transformed into shock and amusement as soon as he took in the scene before him.

            _“Commander Varx...this is interesting. I trust you also have the remaining Voltron Lions in your possession?”_

            “Yes, Your Imperial Majesty,” Varx replied, with a haughty glance back at the Paladins, a smirk on her face. “Soon, they’ll be returned to Central Command, where they rightfully belong, along with my...other catch. All five of them, plus one.”

            _“Yes…”_ Lotor’s eyes scanned over the group, eyes narrowing as they landed on Tiva. _“Who is that? I don’t recall a Galran being on Team Voltron—aside from the Red Paladin.”_

            Keith’s hands clenched into fists behind his back.

            “A traitor to the Empire,” Varx answered without missing a beat. “The only one I discovered upon my infiltration of the Castle of Lions. I could have killed her, but I decided against it, and I’ll be bringing her to you as an added bonus.”

            The ease with which Varx spoke sent shivers skittering down Keith’s spine. He glanced to his right, at Pidge. Her teeth worried at her lower lip, but fury burned in the daggers she glared at the back of Varx’s head. On Pidge’s other side, Hunk had his teeth grit. He appeared as though he could’ve sprung into action at any moment, and Keith wouldn’t put it past him.

            _“I see,”_ Lotor said, lip curling in disgust. _“You have her, but what of the advisor? Where is Coran Smythe?”_

            “Escaped,” Varx lied. “One of my subordinates went after him, and the fool let him get away with the castleship. He retreated, rather than fighting back, and I’ve dispatched personnel to track him down. He’ll be caught soon enough. After all, he’s got no Paladins to watch over him now.”

            Varx swept her arm out at the row of them behind her.

            _“Yes, of course. Team Voltron…it’s been a little while, hasn’t it? I must say, I’ve missed all of you. Especially you, Red Paladin. It seems all of our plans get ruined, don’t they?”_

            Keith didn’t deign to respond. He glared at Lotor, unblinking, until Lotor sighed. _“And I see you still refuse to cooperate with me.”_

            Keith bit his tongue.

            Lotor narrowed his eyes.

            _“No remarks, mmm? You’ve finally learned to keep your mouth shut? I don’t believe it—I think you’re planning something.”_

            Varx turned her head and pretended to study Keith, and then stalked toward him. Keith watched her, grateful that he had something else to focus on besides Lotor, uneasy that it happened to be one angry commander, even if the anger was just for show.

            “Are you planning something, Paladin?” Varx demanded. She leveled her gun at his face, barrel right between his eyes. One misfire, one accidental pull of the trigger would kill him. Keith held his breath and slowly shook his head _no,_ while Varx shoved her arm forward. The gun’s barrel smacked into the visor of his helmet.

            _“Don’t kill him, Commander,”_ Lotor called, and Varx tuned slightly, never letting her arm drop. _“I’ve got plans for that one. If anything, kill the traitor.”_

            Varx’s eyes cut to Tiva, and then back to Keith. Back to the gun aimed just below his forehead. Slowly, she moved the gun away, aimed it toward Tiva. Started walking in that direction. Keith didn’t relax in her wake—he stole a glance at Shiro, at Allura, at Tiva herself. Tiva stared down Varx as Varx drew closer.

            “I don’t know, Your Imperial Majesty,” Varx started. “If she’s a traitor, she has useful information—”

            _“I don’t need any more information, Commander.”_ Lotor’s voice was sharper, more impatient than it had been a minute ago. _“I have two Lions and one Paladin already in my possession, and I’ll have the rest shortly, and then all of Voltron will belong to me. Kill the traitor.”_

            “Luce,” Pidge chose then to whisper into her comms. “We need a distraction _now._ ”

            No matter how fast Luce and her group of Obscurities moved, it would have been too late.

            _Selfish,_ the voice in Keith’s head whispered, as every second Varx hesitated to shoot stretched into infinity. _Prioritizing your own desires over someone else_ _’s life._

            _It_ _’s for the universe,_ Keith wanted to argue, and didn’t.

            Instead, he lunged forward, careful to keep his back out of view of the screen in front of him.

            “Wait! Don’t kill her!”

            Armor scraped armor and guns whined to life, each one swinging toward Keith. Varx’s head whipped in his direction, as did Lotor’s.

            “You have no say in the matter, Paladin,” Varx snapped. “If it weren’t for the Emperor’s orders, I’d have you killed next for daring to talk back.”

            _“And why don’t you want her killed,_ Keith? _”_ Lotor sneered. _“Is she an integral part of whatever plan you have cooked up? Rest assured, it will never come to fruition. You’ll never reach Blue before—”_

            “Stop calling him that,” Keith growled. “His name is _Lance_.”

            Lotor paused, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. _“As far as I’m concerned, his name is_ Jeremy, _and he_ _’s my_ husband. _It would do you well to keep your mouth shut._ _”_

            “ _Husband_ my ass,” Keith fired back.

            Lotor _tsked,_ and made a show of looking past Keith, at the row of guards behind him.

            _“One of you—”_

            “ _Luce,_ we need you—”

            _“—take his hand, he doesn’t need two—”_

The ship shuddered violently, and the Paladins each were thrown to the side, collapsing into a heap on each other. Varx seized her opportunity and whirled around, firing off a shot at the computer system generating the transmission. The screen went to static, Lotor trying to shout over it, before it blinked out entirely.

            “Well, there goes _that_ plan,” Varx muttered.

            The Paladins rose to their feet, fumbling to support each other. Hunk hoisted up both Keith and Pidge, while Allura extended hands to Shiro and Tiva.

            “Good thing we plan for contingencies,” Shiro said, voice low as he accepted Allura’s help. “Guys—let’s go.”

            Varx narrowed her eyes. “What do you—”

            She cut herself off with a cry of surprise as the Paladins moved. Pidge, Hunk, and Shiro summoned their bayards, while Allura’s staff flared up with a surge of energy, and Tiva aimed her laser gun at the row of guards and began barking orders for them to move back, and Keith drew his blade from its sheath and let it elongate in front of him.

            “What are you doing?” Varx demanded, as Hunk aimed his laser cannon at her, and Shiro stalked forward with his sword pointed at her throat.

            “If you won’t mind,” Allura spoke up, casually twirling her staff and walking in tandem with Shiro, “ _we_ _’ll_ be taking over from here. That was too close of a call. Luce—”

            Allura paused, one hand drifting to her helmet.

            “—we’re good for now. Stay close.”

            “I don’t believe I authorized those ships,” Varx said, one foot sliding back as Shiro and Allura came closer.

            “Tragic,” Hunk replied sarcastically, hoisting his cannon higher. “ _Your emperor_ was never authorized to kill his father and kidnap my best friend, but things don’t always work out the way we want them to. Now, order your soldiers to stand down, and we won’t be having any issues.”

            “You’re outmatched,” Varx said coolly, still eying the cannon with apprehension. “Anything you try against me—”

            “There won’t be any _trying_ about it,” Shiro interrupted.

            “Make a move, I dare you,” Varx bit out, narrowing her eyes at the Black Paladin. “I could kill any of you in under a dobosh, and that’s me _alone_. My soldiers are some of the best fighters—”

            “You have some stake in this,” Tiva cut in. “There’s a _reason_ you haven’t killed us yet, and you’ll hold back until you absolutely have to. Now sit down, and nobody has to get hurt.”

            Varx shifted her gaze between Tiva and the other Paladins—between Hunk and Shiro and Allura, and the cannon and staff and sword aimed at her; between Keith and Pidge, and the katar and sword leveled at the soldiers that outnumbered them an easy four to one.

            “Allow me to be clear,” Allura hissed. “If you so much as _order_ an attack, you’ll be dead before you can finish your sentence.”

            “So what if I won’t kill you?” Varx asked, and took another step backwards, toward the chair stationed at one of the computers. “ _You_ won’t kill _me_ , either. You need someone to get you into Central Command—”

            “I’m sure we can figure something out,” Keith retorted. “Several pilots, a princess, an engineer, a tech genius, a Galran, a part-Galran...doesn’t seem too hard to me.”

            The others awaited a response, Allura inching forward. Varx took another step back and tipped her chin ever-so-slightly toward her soldiers, eyes flitting back and forth, fingers moving at her side. Shiro whipped around, mouth open to call a warning, but Keith and Pidge were already moving.

            The first soldier swung their gun at Pidge and fired, and Pidge leapt away from it in a back handspring. Another three joined the first and converged on her, and Tiva moved in to help her, while the other four turned on Keith. He didn’t think, just acted, blade slicing through the belly of the first one in a messy arc. Blood sprayed as the soldier stumbled.

            Spited, the other three soldiers turned vicious in their attacks.

            One shot at Keith at almost point-blank range, and Keith barely moved out of the way as a laser blast grazed the top of his helmet. He spun backwards to the left, and drove the blade clutched in his right hand into the chest of the offending soldier, tearing easily through armor. The soldier leveled their gun at his face before he could get away, and promptly had their head blown off.

            Keith whipped around and caught sight of Hunk. A look and a nod passed between them, and then Keith ducked and let a soldier fly over his head. He tackled the soldier as soon as they hit the ground, one arm wrapping around its neck. Hunk moved in on the other soldier, who’d raised their gun and fired off a shot, destroying Keith’s jetpack.

            Keith drew his blade across the neck of his soldier, and the body dropped. Keith jumped off with a kick and landed solidly next to Hunk, who’d succeeded in putting down the last of the soldiers. They wasted no time, and glanced off to the side, where Tiva and Pidge were wrapping with their soldiers, Pidge electrocuting the last of them before letting the ropes of her bayard fall away.

            At that moment, Shiro cried out.

            The four of them turned, adrenaline propelling Keith forward before he even understood what was happening. Shiro held his Galra hand to his gut—his _activated_ Galra hand. Then Keith’s eyes found Varx, grinning wickedly, blade coated in blood.

            _Shiro_ _’s_ blood.

            Allura, meanwhile, was creeping up behind her, clearly limping, staff clutched tightly in her hand, glowing a brilliant celeste.

            Varx didn’t see her. Her attention became focused on Keith as he sprinted. She raised her blade, prepared to engage, when she screamed, and dropped her sword, and fell to her knees. Allura rose to full height behind her, staff digging painfully somewhere into Varx’s back.

            “ _Nobody_ touches my Paladins,” Allura snarled.

            She shut her eyes, fingers tightening around her staff, while Varx went slack, eyes far away. Keith didn’t stop charging, even with his target rendered unable to fight back, and would’ve gotten to her, if not for the chorus of shouts that rose up behind him, if not for Shiro still managing to catch him by the arm and drag him back.

            “Keith, _don_ _’t._ ”

            Even with his real arm, his grip was rock-hard, and Keith didn’t bother putting up a fight. He halted clumsily, stumbled back a few feet. When it was clear he wouldn’t be moving again, Shiro let go—slowly at first, testing the waters, and then all at once.

            “She hurt you,” Keith whispered, and Shiro shook his head.

            “You’re better than that. I know you are. Besides—Allura’s got it covered.”

            Keith’s eyes flicked back to the princess, back to Varx, to the two of them immobile. The other Paladins drew closer, solidly at Keith and Shiro’s backs. Keith was acutely aware of how close they were, fighting instinct not quite gone yet. He registered Pidge reaching out to touch his busted jetpack, already mentally planning out what repairs would have to be made, whether or not it _could_ be repaired, or whether he’d need _another_ new suit of armor.

            “Did she…did she get into Varx’s mindscape?” Hunk whispered, and brought Keith back to attention.

            Had she?

            As far as he knew, Allura had only ever been able to get into the mindscapes of himself and the others, through the Voltron bond, and her own bonds to the Lions. Haggar had only ever gotten to Lance through her magic. If Allura got through to Varx…

            “I think so,” Shiro answered, voice teetering on the thin line between grimness and pride.

            The Paladins waited. None of the other officers or soldiers on the bridge dared to so much as look up from their computer stations to help Varx or avenge their dead comrades. No one tripped an alarm. As far as Keith could tell, no one was attempting to get into contact with Central Command to update Lotor on the situation.

            “We’re wasting time,” Tiva decided then.

            She straightened her back and walked to the very edge of the bridge platform where they stood, a platform overlooking a lower deck, where even more officers waited for orders.

            “You’re to keep on track for Central Command,” she called down. “Contact the emperor himself, or attempt to turn us in, and you’ll face the same consequences as Commander Varx and her soldiers. This ship is fully under the control of Voltron, and I expect each and every one of you to understand that.”

            “You don’t command us!” someone yelled up to her, eliciting several other shouts of agreement.

            Varx gasped at that moment and pitched forward, barely managing to catch herself before her face could hit the floor. Allura’s eyes flew open, constricted pupils slowly dilating. Her senses slammed back into her at once—one moment, she appeared disoriented, and the next, she jabbed Varx again with her staff.

            “She may not,” Allura called, and jabbed Varx a third time, ushering her forward while the Paladins watched, silent, afraid to intervene, “but _she_ does.”

            Allura pushed Varx all the way to the railing running around the platform, Varx gripping the metal supports like prison bars. The officers below waited, shooting gazes between each other, hands drifting toward weapons.

            “Keep on track for Central Command,” Varx bit out, and at prodding from Allura, continued, “and do not get into contact with the Emperor. Refuse any and all incoming transmissions.” Varx faltered, and Allura pressed down harder, prompting a grunt. “ _You are also to listen to the Voltron Paladins—princessisthisreallynecessary—_ ”

            Allura let up, and Varx collapsed against the rails.

            “Restrain her,” she ordered the other Paladins without so much as a glance back. “Take her weapons. She’s more capable than she’s letting on.”

            The Paladins and Tiva did as told—Hunk and Shiro strode up to Varx and grabbed one arm each, while Tiva searched the dead soldiers and produced a pair of handcuffs. Keith and Pidge kept weapons trained on Varx while Allura remained on the platform, overlooking the officers, making sure one of them tried anything.

            Keith’s gaze continually switched between Varx and Shiro, and the wound Shiro’d cauterized all on his own. His teeth worried at his lower lip. Yeah, he wasn’t bleeding out anymore, but cauterizing it would only do so much for _internal_ injuries. Keith hadn’t seen attack itself, but judging by how far down the blood had gone on Varx’s blade…

            _Not now. Get done with her first._

            Hunk and Shiro led Varx all the way down the platform, to a pipe running along one of the walls. They cuffed her hands to the pipe with two separate pairs of cuffs, and put a third pair around both wrists. Varx glared at them the whole time they restrained her, baring her teeth in an effort to intimidate them, and earned a reaction from no one.

            “I’ll watch her,” Tiva said, as soon as they were done.

            “Thank you,” Shiro said. He bent over slightly, clutching his wound again, wincing when his hand made contact with his burned skin. Keith frowned as the group of Paladins walked away from Varx, back toward Allura.

            “There’s no way you can go and fight Lotor like that,” Keith pointed out.

            Shiro raised his head long enough to look Keith in the eyes and smiled grimly. “Plan’s already set. I have to do it—”

            “No, you don’t,” Keith cut in. “Let me go in and do it.”

            “You’re the only one besides Lance who can pilot Red,” Shiro insisted. “We need you to get him out of there. I’ve handled worse wounds and come out of it fine—”

            “If you’re thinking about the one time Haggar got to you, _you almost died!_ You were already giving me the _you have to be the leader_ spiel!”

            Keith’s voice shot up several octaves as he spoke, and didn’t realize until he noticed Pidge and Hunk looking at him with wide eyes. He didn’t shrink back, but sighed and rolled his shoulders, and let his voice drop again.

            “Red will let you in,” Keith went on. “If I tell him you need to, and tell him we’re desperate, he’ll do it.”

            “Keith’s got a point,” Pidge commented. “Green let Allura in, remember?”

            Keith’s eyes cut to Pidge, who shook her head at him.

            “Story for another time. All you need to know is that, if we’re desperate, the Lions will do what they have to do to make things work,” she said.

            Keith nodded, insides feeling cold. What else didn’t he know?

            _Not the time._

            “Go and get the bayards with Allura, and then get Red. I can handle myself out there, and I’ve got Hunk watching my back,” Keith said. “Not to mention, Pidge and Tiva monitoring our progress.”

            Shiro glanced between his three youngest charges, all of them staring at him, until he gave a sigh of his own, fingers curling tighter over the injury.

            “Fine,” he conceded. “But at least take the black bayard. I don’t need _three_ weapons on me.”

            A fair trade, if it meant Shiro would go on the decidedly safer part of the mission. Keith took the bayard from Shiro’s outstretched hand and let it dematerialize, hiding away in his suit.

            “Every other aspect of the plan remains the same,” Shiro said pointedly. “We get in, get the bayards, get the Lions, get Lance, and get out. Killing Lotor only happens if absolutely necessary. Understood?”

            Keith, Hunk, and Pidge nodded, and Shiro ran a hand through his hair and turned away, toward Allura, to explain the change in plans. Meanwhile, Varx’s ship continued its slow procession, Luce’s ships trailing, toward Central Command.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wanted this out earlier but the school musical has been kicking my ass but on the bright side it's the last weekend so yayyyyy more writing time!! and i already have plans set for the next chapter!!!!
> 
> see you then!!


	33. The One in Which Two Forces Collide, Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Paladins take on Central Command, and they're not leaving until they bring their Lions and their Paladin back home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also known as "the chapter of too many em dashes"
> 
> this is the longest chapter here and i wrote it in 5 days, so make of that what you will
> 
>  
> 
> **trigger warning for graphic violence, injury, you know, the usual**

Chapter 33

            When it came time to get a confirmation that the ship hadn’t been taken over by the Paladins, that Varx still had the place firmly under her control, she’d had to do it over voice communications, because her video communications were busted. It made it that much easier for Allura and the others to stand there threateningly, while Varx confirmed that the Paladins were all restrained and awaiting transfer from her cells to the cells of Central Command.

            As soon as comms cut out, and the ship was let through a hangar checkpoint to park where it pleased, Allura used one end of her staff to knock Varx clean upside the head, and Varx dropped to the ground, cuffs sliding down the pipe, sound grating on the Paladins’ ears.

            “Pidge, Tiva, you’re in charge of operations here,” Allura said, as the group of Paladins and Tiva converged in the center of the platform. “Direct us as quickly as possible—Shiro’s in need of a body scan and a cryopod, so we need to make this as short as we can.”

            “I can handle it,” Shiro said, waving her off. “I’ve gone through worse, and we’ve come too far to quit. There’s too much riding on this, and we’re not leaving until we’ve taken back the Lions _and_ rescued Lance.”

            The reassurance should’ve bolstered Keith’s energy and his confidence in this plan, but he found himself nodding absently, his Marmora blade weighing heavily in the palm of his hand. He’d let it shrink back to his dagger, and didn’t intend on changing it back into a blade. Not unless he absolutely _had_ to—he would do as much as possible to avoid confrontation, and keep Lance out of harm’s way.

            A Herculean task, and one he’d undertake nonetheless.

            “Are we ready to move? We don’t have a ton of time—Lotor’s gotta know something happened,” Hunk said.

            He looked between the group of Paladins, all of them nodding and murmuring agreements before Allura ordered them to get going. Pidge and Tiva broke away for the computer systems, weapons drawn and aimed at the officers below as they shouted commands. Meanwhile, Allura, Shiro, Keith, and Hunk all headed for the open hatch. Hunk clutched his laser cannon tightly and ran at the head of the group, Keith bringing up close behind, while Shiro and Allura trailed, trying to hide themselves from anyone who might’ve appeared in their path.

            “Pidge, we need you online _stat_ ,” Shiro said quietly. “We need to know where these bayards are.”

            _“Yeah, yeah, gimme a sec here, I know we’re on a time cru—aha, you little fucker—mmm—”_

            “ _Pidge,_ this is not—”

            _“I’m in, I’m in, jeez. I’m trying to get a reading on the bayards now.”_

Shiro sighed exasperatedly, while Keith tuned him out, eyes darting around the hangar. It was suspiciously empty as the group sprinted for the door leading into the rest of Central Command. His fingers curled even tighter around the hilt of his dagger as the group drew closer—

            _“Keith.”_

            Keith almost stopped dead as heat flooded his system, the embers of a fire suddenly sparking into a wild blaze. He whipped his head immediately in some indistinct direction, eyes landing on a wall, everything in his core pulling that way.

            “Red?” he whispered.

            He caught sight of Allura in his periphery, as her eyes narrowed, and she moved faster.

            “Blue’s calling out to me, too,” she said. “She…something’s wrong. Something with Lance.”

            _Lance._

            Red must’ve sensed his thoughts—at once, waves of distress came rolling over the bond between the two of them, strong enough that Keith stumbled, and it took Allura shoving him from behind to keep him on his feet.

            _Red, what_ _’s wrong with Lance?_

_“I don’t know—neither Blue nor I can get into communication with him. Our bond comes to a halt—but he isn’t dead, is the thing. He was in great distress right before we were cut off, but this was not death. This was something else.”_

            Keith growled, low in the back of his throat, a sound he didn’t find so surprising anymore. Hunk shot a glance at him, a tiny glance that Keith nearly missed, before the Yellow Paladin turned forward again, as the group reached the door.

            “Lotor did something to Lance,” Keith hissed under his breath. “Red and Blue can’t get through to him.”

            “Wonderful,” Hunk responded bitterly, sarcastically, as he paused before the door. “Pidge, can you get this thing open, or should I just blast through it?”

_“Give me a sec—the hall on the other side is clear of personnel. I’m not liking where this is going.”_

            “We knew we were walking into a trap,” Shiro said. “Just get us through. We’ll take what comes.”

            Keith looked sidelong at him, at the way he grit his teeth and kept a hand pressed over his wound, trying his best to straighten out and not make it obvious that he was in pain. The less the personnel aboard Central Command knew, the better. The less they could use to their advantage.

            _“You’re in. Shiro, Allura, I’m uploading a map to the bayards right now. They’re on the training deck, and there’s a group of soldiers concentrated in that sector. Keith, Hunk, I’m getting readings on Lance right now,”_ Pidge said. As she spoke, the door before them opened with a creak and a hiss that echoed through the emptiness. Hunk poked his head out first—sure enough, the place was void of life. No sentries, no soldiers, no officers, no Lotor.

            “Good luck out there,” Shiro said, placing a hand on Keith’s shoulder, squeezing his armor, and then letting it fall away before joining Allura as they moved, Allura leading the way. Keith nodded back to him and muttered a barely-audible you too. His mind was elsewhere, on the task ahead.

 _“Be careful, Keith,”_ Red purred. _“We’ve no idea what’s been done to Lance. Think before you act. Don’t allow Lotor to dupe you.”_

_I know._

            Keith and Hunk waited by the door, listening hard for sounds coming from other parts of Central Command, while Pidge muttered quietly to herself, voice low enough that Keith couldn’t make out any of her words over the comms. In the background, he could just hear Tiva shouting at the officers.

            “Pidge—” Hunk started, just as Pidge cut him off.

_“I’ve got a visual.”_

            “Let’s hear it,” Keith said, voice impossibly steady for the situation. His heart pounded in his chest as each second passed, each second where Pidge hesitated to speak up. “Pidge, what’ve we got?”

            _“He...he’s in the arena.”_

* * *

            One Paladin kidnapped, one injured, the youngest left by her lonesome on a Galra ship crawling with people who could turn on her at any time, and two Lions in clear distress.

            A headache pushed at every last inch of Allura’s head, between the mounting number of problems and the power she’d already exerted to break into Varx’s mindscape and take control of things. Entering had been like entering a swamp, with brackish black sludge and overgrown plants hiding, waiting to trip her up. Varx herself had been difficult to overcome; the uppercut Allura had taken in her mind still had her jaw physically aching.

            But she had no time to dwell on any of this.

            Her feet carried her through Central Command, steady and solid and sure underneath her as she raced for the training deck. Shiro caught up, from trailing a foot or two behind to being right by her side, never once voicing a complaint. He’d finally let go of his injury, hissing as the cold air of the base stung where he’d cauterized his cut.

            “A little further,” Allura promised.

            “Lotor’s got the place guarded,” Shiro replied. “There’s nothing _little_ about this.”

            “Except maybe your patience, I see,” Allura muttered under her breath.

            They drew up short at a corner, Allura flinging her arm up as she peered around the side.

            Empty.

            “They must all be concentrated near the entrance to the training deck,” Allura whispered, and then stepped forward and waved Shiro after her.

            Her staff began glowing blue again, as they approached the next corner, the one that would lead them to the entrance to the training deck. Shiro activated his arm, careful to keep it away from Allura. Their steps grew slower, quieter, until Allura put up another hand, and Shiro paused without question.

            Silence.

            “Luring us into a false sense of security,” Shiro whispered.

            Allura nodded and risked the glance around the corner, and immediately drew back. A second nod at Shiro confirmed the question in his raised eyebrows: soldiers were indeed waiting around the corner. From the continued silence—no footfalls, no clanging armor suddenly headed in their direction—Allura gathered that she hadn’t been spotted.

            “Are you _sure_ you can handle this?” Allura whispered with another look back at Shiro’s wound.

            “Anything else is internal. There’s no dealing with it now,” Shiro answered. “Besides, if I could get through what Haggar did to me, on top of crash-landing on a planet after a wormhole malfunction and being attacked by wild creatures, this is nothing. We’re wasting time.”

            _Little patience indeed,_ Allura thought to herself, and turned back around. She tapped her fingers along her staff once before tightening her grip. A nudge from Shiro in the back, and she was charging. No shrieking, no war cries, no swears of vengeance and violence. Allura unleashed her fury, and Shiro followed suit. By the time the soldiers got their bearings, they’d already taken down a row of them—some unconscious from blows to the head, some writhing in pain from blows elsewhere, and others motionless, dead, gaping wounds in stomachs and chests.

            “Shiro, duck!” Allura shouted, as one soldier rushed her. She wasted no time, spared no second thought about shoving with all of her might and skewering through the soldier’s armor with the sharper end of her staff. The soldier gasped, hands flying to the wound. Allura kicked the soldier in the chest and yanked her staff out, and the soldier stumbled back and fell over Shiro’s bent form, knocking into other soldiers behind him.

            As soon as the soldiers were down, Shiro lunged, using his jetpack for a boost as he broke for the door. One soldier came at him from the side—Shiro landed a sucker punch with his glowing GalraTech hand, a punch that took out one side of the soldier’s face in a mess of charred flesh and metal.

            “Pidge, we need the training deck door,” Shiro breathed, switching on his comms.

            _“On it. How are you and Allura holding up?”_ Pidge responded, but her voice was strained, like her mind was elsewhere, already working out other problems.

            At that moment, Allura let out a loud yell as she picked a soldier up and swung the body around, taking down a group of soldiers surrounding her. Shiro paused, momentarily, just to gape, before blinking and refocusing on the task at hand.

            “Peachy,” Shiro answered.

            _“Must be nice,”_ Hunk said. _“Pretty sure Keith is going to murder someone.”_

            “Lotor, hopefully,” Shiro responded, as the door to the training deck opened. “What’s going on with you two?”

            _“Lance is in the arena, and it looks like we’re gonna need backup. There’s a full crowd, Lotor’s there, and Lance is there in a prisoner’s uniform, just like…sitting in the middle of the arena, according to Pidge.”_

 _“Yep,”_ Pidge confirmed. _“From what I’ve gathered, they’re pretending like Lance is chained up. He’s got three guards on him, but I can_ just _barely see a gun in his hands. I really don_ _’t have a good feeling about this.”_

            _“No shit, Sherlock,”_ came Keith’s voice.

            _“Okay you know what—you’re stressed, so I’ll give you a pass, but_ watch it _, Kogane._ _”_

            Shiro would’ve maybe reprimanded them, if he’d had the time. He ran into the training deck as the other Paladins talked over the comms, eyes sweeping the room. His breath caught in his throat as he took in the massive wall of weapons that took up the entirety of the left side of the room. His eyes drifted up, and found exactly what he was looking for: the red and blue bayards, high above, in glass cases.

            “Don’t let this one get away!” a soldier shouted from behind Shiro, and snapped him from his reverie.

            Shiro took a running start and leapt for the wall, hands snagging onto the racks holding different weapons. He knocked a few down in his wake, one laser gun hitting the floor and going off, firing a shot at the glass wall separating the training deck from the observation deck as he climbed up toward the bayards. He tried to be more strategic about kicking others down to hit the soldiers trying to fire at him.

            “Allura! I need cover!” Shiro shouted, when one shot grazed far too close to the side of his helmet.

             Another shot struck his shoulder—he felt the way it tore through the padding of his flight suit, the way heat seared his skin. Then there was another, just missing his calf. Another, striking an inch from his hand. A shot landing against the back of his chestplate, cracks sounding as they spiderwebbed across his armor.

            Another shot would shatter it entirely and leave him even more vulnerable than he already was, and he couldn’t have that.

            Shiro clung to the wall with one hand and swiped a gun with his other, leveled it, and fired. This gun gave a staccato burst of laser fire, and the recoil had Shiro’s hand slipping. He grit his teeth, tightened his fingers’ hold on the wall, on the gun. Then he glanced back up and could’ve hit himself for wasting all of this time.

            He raised the gun and shot at the glass surrounding the bayards, and then pressed in tighter against the wall as the glass shattered and rained down.

            “Watch out!” Allura yelled from down below, and Shiro stayed pressed against the wall as something whizzed by his head and struck the space where the bayards were. Several objects then fell by him, and when Shiro peeled away long enough to look down, he caught sight of Allura, practically wrestling a soldier over the two bayards.

            “Allura, move!”

            Allura did as told and ducked out of the way as Shiro released the wall and dropped, coming down elbow-first on several of the soldiers. As soon as he was on the ground, Allura moved back in, lunging with her staff. She whacked one of the soldiers in the face, and whirled around and smacked another in the gut—this one happened to be holding one of the bayards. They dropped it, and Allura snatched it up. At once, the blue bayard transformed in her hands, into a whip.

            Just that much easier to get the red bayard back from a soldier breaking for the door, shouting for the others to keep Allura and Shiro contained, to capture them for Emperor Lotor.

            _“Shiro, what’s your status?”_ Pidge asked, out of the blue.

            “Making progress, almost done here,” Shiro said, rising to his feet and swiping at one soldier trying to keep him down, before ramming his shoulder into another.

            _“Good, because we might need you and Allura on standby. Hunk and Keith are still en route to the arena.”_

Shiro furrowed his brow—up ahead, Allura lashed out with her laser whip, glowing blue wrapping around the wrist of the soldier carrying the red bayard and jerking them back.

            “What about Blue and Red?”

            _“We…I don’t know—we’re going to have to leave all at once. But…the Lions, something is nagging at them, and nagging at_ me. _We can_ _’t let Hunk and Keith handle the arena alone. As soon as you and Allura are done, I’m going to move. Tiva’s going to lock down as many sectors as she can and keep an open path for us.”_

            Last-minute changes to plans…something in Shiro’s gut twisted. Running on half-baked ideas had gotten them into this mess in the first place, and improvisation made for sloppy escapes that led to even bigger issues. Too much rode on this rescue; it couldn’t go down the same path as the missions had.

            “Allura! You heard Pidge!” he finally shouted, after a silent, loosed breath of resignation. “We’ve gotta move!”

* * *

            No soldiers in each and every hallway Keith and Hunk ran through.

            This had everything to do with Lance in the arena, surrounded by guards, even though he held a gun, and everyone in the damn universe knew his reputation as Team Voltron’s sharpshooter. Had everything to do with the crowd, anxiously awaiting whatever was about to go down. Had everything to do with Lotor, casually lounging on his throne on the dais overlooking the arena, smiling lazily at Lance.

            Keith’s skin crawled.

            Pidge had uploaded the images of the arena to the comm channels between her, himself, and Hunk, just so they could see exactly what she was talking about, and it had taken everything in Keith not to lose his shit at the sight of Lance in a _prisoner_ _’s uniform,_ on his knees, at the mercy of three guards, after being paraded around for two months as Lotor’s second-in-command. Once his hazy rage had cleared, Hunk had reminded him that everyone in the crowd must have known the outfit was a ruse.

            They knew something was coming.

            “Out of the fifteenth sector,” Hunk said into his comms then, breaking up the tense silence that had fallen over them.

            _“Tiva’s going to lock you down. Shiro and Allura are coming, and I’m moving in, too,”_ Pidge responded. _“Start moving in, but_ be careful. _Don_ _’t do anything reckless—not until we get there.”_

            _No promises,_ Keith almost said, out of habit, but stopped himself. He wasn’t on his own anymore, and his life wasn’t the only one on the line if the mission went south. Lance’s fate rested in the team’s hands, and if Keith was the one who screwed it up— _again,_ that tiny bastard of a voice teased, a flame wearing the rope of his patience shorter—he wouldn’t be able to live with himself.

            “Coming up on the arena. No guards posted at the door,” Hunk reported, pulling Keith out of his thoughts.

            _Focus._

            Keith mentally kicked himself and blinked a few times to clear his head, to gather his bearings and get back on task. Spacing out would cost him dearly, a price he refused to pay.

            _I_ _’m not going to let them down again._

            _“Door’s already been cleared. You should be good to enter,”_ a voice that wasn’t Pidge said.

            Tiva.

            Keith spared a single thought to hope that she would be okay on the ship, by herself with no one but Varx and Varx’s subordinates, now that Pidge had gone. To hope that Varx wasn’t faking things, that she would stay incapacitated long enough for the rest of the mission to carry out with as few hitches as possible.

            “You ready?” Hunk asked.

            Keith went through each image file again, eying the arena carefully. Guards and soldiers were scattered about the seating in the arena, armor just a little too conspicuous. Lotor had a guard posted on either side of him but looked completely unconcerned—even as the Paladins stormed Central Command.

            Because there was no way he didn’t know. Not after that transmission.

            _Varx is just another pawn. One more tool to get us here,_ Keith reminded himself.

            Lotor cared little for the lives of his inferiors, cared little for the Voltron Lions, and barely cared about ending the lives of the other Paladins. He cared the most about having Lance in his possession—eliminating the other Paladins ended up on his radar solely because they stood in the way. Had they not been interfering, Keith guessed Lotor would have left them alone a long time ago.

            “As I’ll ever be,” Keith finally answered.

            He and Hunk strode slowly forward, each step feeling as though he were wearing lead weights on his feet. The arena door opened, and Hunk hefted his laser cannon. They were still in shadows, and yet, the shouting of the arena audience suddenly swelled.

            “Well, about time!” a voice boomed around the arena, and a growl ripped from Keith’s throat before he could stop it. Hunk shot no glances, gave no indication he’d heard the noise—just readjusted his cannon and inched closer to Keith, as Keith’s grip tightened on the hilt of his knife.

            His focus slipped away from Lotor, and away from the crowd. Instead, it landed on the figure kneeling half a football field’s length away from him, staring straight ahead.

            Lance, in the flesh.

* * *

             _No._

            It was the only word coming to Lance’s mind, a shrieking chorus he couldn’t stop as he stared ahead, eyes unable to move anywhere else, anywhere but the two figures in the entrance to the arena.

            His limbs remained locked into place as he awaited orders. In the earpiece that had been unceremoniously and uncomfortably shoved in his ear before he was planted in this spot, he could hear Lotor laughing to himself, muttering about how things were finally clicking into place, about how Keith would enjoy the little show he would put on for the shrieking Galrans in the stadium.

            _You need to leave. You shouldn_ _’t have come after me. I told you to stay away and just get the Lions._

            _Yeah, and Keith told you he_ _’d be ignoring those orders. What else did you expect?_

            Keith had never exactly been one for authority, and in that moment, Lance couldn’t decide if he loved or hated him for it. Loved him, for caring fiercely enough to throw himself headfirst into danger just to try and save him. Hated him, for caring fiercely enough to _throw himself headfirst into fucking danger_ to rescue Lance from a mess he’d made by himself.

            Not only that, but now the team had gotten dragged into it, and if Lance had to watch Keith _and_ Hunk go down…and then the _others_ …

            “Now the fun begins!”

* * *

             _“Do you see now?”_ Red asked. _“We cannot get through to him.”_

            Keith _did_ see. Lance remained unmoving, where Keith would have expected _something,_ even just a _flinch_ to let him know that Lance saw, Lance understood that there was no way in hell they’d leave him behind.

            “Guys, if you’re on your way…hurry up, maybe?” Hunk whispered into the comms. “Lotor’s decided to make it known to—hmm, let’s see— _just about everyone in the stadium_ that we’re here.”

            _“We’re on our way. Keith, is Red acting up?”_ Allura responded.

            “Not really? He talked to me, but he’s not freaking out. Is Blue freaking out?” Keith answered.

            _“Yes. She…she wants me to try something when we get into the arena. We all need to act quickly, and Keith, I’m going to need your help. Blue requests it.”_

            Soldiers suddenly at Keith’s back pulled him away from the conversation with the team. Hunk turned around first, cannon raised, but the soldiers were already shoving them forward, refusing to fire. Keith glanced at Hunk once and nodded, and let loose, while Hunk sprinted for the center of the arena.

            For Lance.

            “Oh no, don’t think you two are getting out of this so easily,” Lotor called down, amusement in his voice. “Jeremy, my dear husband—I think it’s time we show them what you can do. Rise, my love!”

            Fuck hiding his abilities.

            As soon as the orders left Lotor’s mouth, Keith let his blade transform in his hands, elongating from a dagger to his sword. He plunged it into the chest of the first soldier and jumped up, feet planted on the soldier’s chest as he wrenched his blade free, while the soldier spun and collapsed in a heap. Keith used the momentum to crash right into the second soldier and slash out at the neck, blood spraying.

            “What’s our plan here? Lotor’s doing something with Lance—”

            Keith ducked underneath a third soldier and stabbed forward, blade burying itself up to the hilt in the soldier’s gut before Keith wrenched back, ignored the blood dripping from the metal, and took off after Hunk.

            _“We need to break into his mindscape,”_ Allura answered, and Keith thanked every star above that he was focused enough to not stumble right then and there. _“Blue and Red combined couldn’t do it—we’re hoping that between the four of us, as we have the strongest connections to Lance, we can break in and reverse whatever’s been done to him. Shiro, Pidge, Hunk—we’ll need all three of you serving as distractions. It will be virtually impossible to fight while we’re projecting.”_

            “Keith!” Hunk shouted then, and Keith snapped to attention.

            Lance rose to his feet on steady legs, and the closer Keith got to him, and the group of soldiers pressing their backs to him, _protecting him,_ Keith saw that Lance…Lance was hardly present.

            His eyes were still locked on the door, unmoving, his posture stiff, back straight as a rod.

            “Now, my love!” Lotor continued, and Keith’s eyes narrowed and course changed. “Do what should have been done a long time ago! _Kill the Paladins of Voltron!_ ”

            _“Tell me the comms fucked that up and I heard that wrong,”_ Pidge said. _“Keith, Hunk, what the hell is happening?”_

            “Well, Lance has a gun!” Hunk shouted. “And it looks like Lotor’s controlling him somehow?”

            “With no druid,” Keith added with a growl.

            _“He had to have been drugged,”_ Shiro said. _“Just like Eddul.”_

            _Eddul._ The word reverberated in Keith’s mind, and this time, he _did_ stop, long enough to study Lance as he brought the gun around from behind his back, face completely blank, and turned toward the closest target—Hunk.

            “Hunk, move!”

            Keith started running again, feet changing paths once more as he barreled for Lance. Hunk activated his shield just as Lance opened fire.

            “Go after Lotor!” Keith shouted. “I’ll keep Lance distracted!”

            At his voice, Lance turned. His gaze held no recognition, and something in Keith’s chest twisted. Probably the knife buried in his heart, but then again, maybe it was the adrenaline. Or his anxieties. Or panic.

            Keith didn’t hesitate as his blade shortened, back into a dagger, and he chucked it right at Lance. Lance hardly flinched as the knife knocked the gun from his hands; just smiled vacantly, like he believed Keith was weaponless.

            Then he lunged for his weapon.

            Keith seized the second Lance’s back was turned and summoned and activated the black bayard, prepared to use it to deflect incoming shots from Lance, and maybe get him down and incapacitate him, when Lance turned back around. He held Keith’s Marmora knife in his hands, rather than the gun. At the same time Lance turned, Keith noticed his ear.

            He wore an earpiece.

            _Bingo._

* * *

            If Pidge had picked up on anything from her past few missions, it was that sneaking around in the vents was much easier than charging through the hallways, even if they _were,_ for the most part, void of all life.

            Sneaking through the vents allowed for grand entrances that the hallways didn’t, like the one she pulled off right now.

            Pidge kicked the grate in the ceiling and watched it collapse just in front of Lotor’s dais, and then leapt out after it, fingers grasping the ledge and swinging her toward the dais itself. Lotor and his officers weren’t ready, and by the time they realized, Pidge had already knocked out one with the electrified ropes from her bayard.

            _“Pidge! About time!”_ Hunk said at that moment, while Lotor and his second officer turned on her.

            The officer raised his gun, while Lotor drew his blade. Pidge grit her teeth and let out a shriek and charged, the voltage on her katar turned up as high as possible as the ropes retracted. Lotor charged right back at her while his officer fired—Pidge summoned her shield just as the first shot hit her shoulder.

            Pidge ducked underneath Lotor’s sword and swept out at his legs, katar striking him around the kneecap. Lotor shrieked and went rigid, while the officer bore down. Pidge shrank into a ball underneath her shield while the officer threw his weight down on top of her, gun still aimed at her head as he tried to find an angle to shoot around the shield.

            He wasn’t fast enough.

            Down below the dais, Hunk let out a shout akin to the roar of a lion and fired his bayard too many times to count, firing until the officer was a smoking heap on the ground, and the threat to Pidge’s life was gone.

            Mostly.

            While the officer had busied himself with Pidge, Lotor had survived his frying with her katar and crawled to behind his throne, and then broke for the steps leading down to the arena itself.

            “How the _fuck_ did he survive that?!” Pidge yelled, while Hunk took off for the stairs to meet Lotor at the bottom.

            “Good armor, maybe?” Hunk called back to her.

            She shook her head, grit her teeth, and started after him. “We’ve gotta corner him.”

            “The arena’s an oval, there aren’t exactly—”

            “You know what I mean!”

* * *

            Lance’s fighting became sloppier the moment Pidge and Hunk had started attacking Lotor, and that was when Keith knew that Lotor was in constant communication with him through the earpiece. Keith seethed as he brought his blade up to parry a strike from Lance, and then ducked underneath another swing.

            He couldn’t bring himself to swing back, lest he hurt Lance in the process.

            There was one problem with this strategy, though, and it lay in the fact that somewhere along the way, Lance had brushed up on his sword-fighting skills. And by _brushed up,_ Keith meant _had become so excellent he nearly rivaled_ Keith. Keith was certain that if Lotor was watching Lance’s back and calling shots, he would’ve been on the ground already, with the expertise of two swordsmen to get him there.

            It didn’t matter that Lance was fighting with his fucking _dagger,_ and not a full-length blade. He wielded it well enough to nick Keith’s neck with it before Keith got his bearings, grimaced, and kicked Lance in the chest, hard enough to send him sprawling to the ground. The crack that sounded afterward had him wincing harder, because _this wasn_ _’t Lance._

            No light in his eyes, no banter on his lips like when they’d sparred before.

            Just emptiness, and the same programmed precision as the training bots.

            _…That’s it._

            Lance, surely, had trained against bots to get here. Keith had done the same, up until he’d been thrown out on his own. Up until the training bots hadn’t cut it anymore.

            While Lance got back to his feet, Keith deactivated his bayard.

* * *

            If Lance had had the ability to smile, he would’ve.

            Lotor had stopped watching, stopped directing this fight a long time ago, from the moment Lance had heard him cry out, had heard Pidge’s voice ring out over his earpiece, signaling that Lotor was just a _little_ too preoccupied at the moment. He left Lance on his orders to kill the Paladins—he hadn’t said _how._

            Maybe Keith throwing the dagger had been an impulsive decision, and not a strategic one meant to help him, but if it got the gun out of his hands, and gave him a short-range weapon instead, well.

            And now Keith was deactivating his bayard, and raising his fists, and charging. Lance’s body brought the dagger up on instinct, and while Lotor’s orders took control of his limbs, had him seeking out a chink in Keith’s armor—the flightsuit, between his ribs—in which to stick his dagger, Keith had other ideas.

            _Do what you need to do, knock me out, just save yourself,_ Lance wanted to tell him, as Keith saw the incoming attack and avoided it, and then swept a leg underneath his, while Lance’s body had been too caught up on watching his hands, preparing to deflect a blow from them.

            “Soldiers! Stop the Paladins at _once! By any means necessary!_ ” Lotor shrieked then, loudly enough that if Lance had control of his actions, he would have flinched, and then probably ripped the earpiece out of his ear. All the shout did was remind Lance of when he’d put his headphones on, forgetting all about how he’d left the volume on max the night before.

            “Allura!” Keith shouted above him, apparently unconcerned with the soldiers jumping down from the seats in the stadium and flooding the arena. “I need you _now!_ We’ve gotta be quick!”

            Keith had gone down as soon as Lance had, straddling him, pinning him and wrestling the knife out of his hands until he had it against Lance’s throat. He glanced back down at Lance now, and the foot on his left wrist, and the hand clamped down over his right, at the way the metal barely met skin.

            “I know you’re in there somewhere,” Keith said, voice dropping a few octaves, “and I’m sorry about this.”

            Were those tears?

            Keith wasn’t breathing right, Lance could tell that much, and it wasn’t just the normal panting after a fight. His breaths were shallow, shuddery. Lance realized with sudden clarity where Keith’s mind must have been, and ached to reach out and hold him, reassure him.

            “Pidge, Hunk! Shiro! We’re gonna need coverage!” Keith yelled then, head suddenly snapping up.

            Lance’s body tried to seize the opening, tried to jerk up and fight back, but Keith held fast. He jerked his chin back down, eyes wide as they flew to the knife against Lance’s neck, and he replanted his foot, adjusted his hand to make sure that Lance wasn’t going anywhere.

            Something must’ve come through Keith’s comms at that moment. His face changed, eyes crinkling as his brows furrowed, and he looked at Lance. A new panic crossed his features briefly, before he nodded, chewed on his bottom lip, looked Lance dead in the eyes.

            “I’m sorry,” he repeated, and brought the knife up, twirled it in his hand, and then smashed the butt against Lance’s temple.

* * *

            He hated watching Lance go limp, hated the vacancy in his eyes. Did Lance _understand?_ Was he even aware of what was happening, or would this be just like what happened after Eddul, and he woke up with no memory of this whatsoever?

            _No time, get moving._

            Keith got to his feet and hauled Lance onto his shoulders in a fireman’s carry, and then started sprinting for the exit door. By now, soldiers were pouring out of the stadium seating, while the crowd screamed in a wild frenzy, chanting for him, chanting for Lance, chanting for Lotor— _whose side are these people even on?_

            “Keith!”

            Keith spotted Allura in the middle of dueling three different soldiers, taking down all three of them in rapid succession with the whip she’d summoned from the blue bayard. She motioned him after her, while he could hear the rest of the team yelling behind him to keep going, they’d watch his back.

            “We need to make it back to the hangars,” Allura said, as soon as they linked up, matching strides. “We need to get into Lance’s head, and I don’t want to risk him waking up mid-flight back to the castle. We need to get to Red.”

            It was at that moment that Lance stirred already, and Keith glanced sidelong at him, panicked.

            “The earpiece,” he said. “He’s got an earpiece, and that’s how Lotor’s been communicating with him.”

            They couldn’t very well just stop running to remove it—not with soldiers on their tails.

            “What’s this?” Lotor yelled from far behind them, behind the group of soldiers. “Are the mighty Paladins of Voltron _running away?_ Especially _you,_ Keith?”

            Keith grit his teeth, didn’t look back. Pounded his feet harder and reached out for his connection to Red.

            “The Lions are too far,” Keith finally muttered, when he got a faint reply, and realized the lengths they’d have to go to to get back to them. “We need to find somewhere secure and do things there, and hope for the best. Tiva, you got anywhere we can hide out?”

            Keith kept his voice low, in hopes the soldiers giving chase couldn’t hear him, while Allura nodded.

            _“Uploading coordinates to a room now,”_ Tiva responded almost immediately. _“The rest of you need to keep those soldiers busy. I’m working on unlocking and locking different sectors…and maybe trying to start a riot in the cell block.”_

            Keith could practically hear the wink in her voice.

            “A lifesaver,” he muttered.

            _“Aw, I’m flattered. Now, go do what you have to do. Bring your boy home.”_

* * *

            Lotor hadn’t been at the head of the group.

            He’d been too busy evading the Green and Yellow Paladins before they finally turned and ran after the others, after Keith and Princess Allura and Lance, after the Black Paladin. By the time Lotor made it out into the hallway, after his taunting of the Red Paladin failed, his soldiers were scattering, each running down different halls, while communications poured in all at once, of which soldiers were going where, of disturbances in other sectors.

            Lotor paused to wonder how six people could be so troublesome.

            Just _six people_ , running amok in the halls of _his_ command center, ruining _his_ plans, kidnapping _his_ husband—

            _Five_ , Lotor reminded himself.

            The Blue Paladin—Lance— _Jeremy_ —no, just _Lance_ —was no longer theirs.

            Lance was _also_ ignoring his orders to get up.

            Lotor had seen him just before the Red Paladin and Princess Allura ran out of the arena, being carried along on the Red Paladin’s shoulders when he should have been fighting back. Should have been trying to _kill_. By all means, Lotor’s voice should have been reaching him—he was speaking directly into his ear, after all. No matter that the Blue Paladin appeared unconscious, because the serum should have been bypassing that.

            So many _should haves_.

            Not enough actually _happening_.

            _“Your Imperial Majesty,”_ a voice crackled through Lotor’s comms, _“we’ve a visual on the Red, Pink, and Blue Paladins in Sector Nine.”_

            Sector Nine. He could handle Sector Nine.

            Lotor ran in that direction, sword clutched tightly in his hands. Soldiers fell into place behind him without order, probably because for the most part, Lotor enjoyed keeping a cool head and leisurely pace while cornering prey. Never had he run this fast. Never had he seemed so desperate.

            Perhaps that was why the Black Paladin, already injured, attacked him from his blind spot by dropping from the ceiling.

            Lotor hadn’t seen him and didn’t have the time to question what he was _doing up there_ , dangling from some pipe or another. He engaged immediately, and noticed that the Black Paladin had, by some miracle ( _miracle_ in the Black Paladin’s sense, and more like a curse on Lotor, because this was just _ridiculous_ now), activated the red bayard, and wielded a sword not unlike the one the Red Paladin tended to use.

            “Black Paladin, I see you haven’t given in yet,” Lotor snapped, blocking the attack at the last second. “I take it you either don’t remember what happened the last time we met face-to-face, or you’re just looking for another fight.”

            Lotor moved quickly. The injury on the Black Paladin’s torso was obvious, and obviously slowing him down, his moves clearly compensating for it, clearly designed to keep pain at a minimum. Lotor seized one of the Black Paladin’s open spots and swung—and the Paladin had the audacity to bring up his _hand_ to stop the swing.

            Glowing purple GalraTech.

            Haggar’s handiwork.

            Lotor’s swing should’ve taken the whole hand off, but the Black Paladin’s fingers wrapped around the blade, and with a grimace, he grunted and yanked, and Lotor stumbled away from his group of guards. Lotor noticed, at that moment, that the Black Paladin was using his jetpack to propel them, and pulled them through a doorway—one with a door that was falling shut.

            Not one of his soldiers made it through before the door clanged closed.

            “Who authorized Sector Eleven to go into lockdown?!” Lotor snarled into his comms. “Lift the lockdown at once!”

            _“It doesn’t appear to be one of our signals, Your Imperial Majesty,”_ another voice answered. _“It appears we’re under attack—”_

            Lotor let loose a roar of anger as he whirled on the Black Paladin.

            “This is _your_ doing!”

            “What was your first guess?” the Black Paladin taunted, rolling his shoulders and taking a step back, as he and Lotor began circling each other.

            “You have some nerve attacking me,” Lotor responded. “Storming my ship, kidnapping my husband—”

            “He’s not your husband,” the Black Paladin interrupted with a breathless laugh. “He never was, and never _will be_.”

            “I have evidence that speaks otherwise,” Lotor snapped.

            Lotor lunged at that moment, and the Black Paladin backpedaled, carefully evading every swipe and stab that came his way, before he retaliated with a swing of his own. Lotor met him halfway, metal clashing against metal.

            “I’ve had doubts about your relation to the Red Paladin,” Lotor said, “but now I can see the resemblance—stubborn, and loyal to a _fault_.”

            “Damn,” the Black Paladin retorted, dodging another stab meant to go straight through the gut, “I thought you were going to comment on my swordsmanship. Keith’s the best we’ve got around—”

            “And yet, not strong enough to not evade my forces, not strong enough to avoid a brush with _death_ —”

            That one hit home. The Black Paladin’s pupils constricted, just momentarily, long enough for Lotor to spin and land a slash across the chin, just an inch or two above his neck. A miss, but still an effective strike. It was enough to stun, and Lotor moved in again.

            “He _died_ , didn’t he?” he continued viciously. “I can see it in your face. You _lost him_. You’ve lost friends, your fellow Paladins, and then _dear baby brother_. What a leader.”

            Lotor twirled again, blade arcing in a neat slice that would have taken off the prosthetic arm without a problem, if the Black Paladin didn’t choose then to drop to the ground and roll at the very last second, throwing off Lotor’s momentum. And while Lotor went down, the Black Paladin attacked.

* * *

             _“All personnel move into Sector Eleven and Sector Nine! Red alert! All personnel to Sector Eleven and Sector Nine!”_

            Sector Nine. That was _them_ , according to the map taking up the left side of Keith’s visor.

            By now, he and Allura had lost the soldiers following them, after Allura fired up a hologram Pidge transmitted through their Paladin suits. Keith didn’t have the time to ask how Pidge had the time to rig it up and send it while she herself was running for her life, and settled for the fact that it was _Pidge_ , and there was a lot of tech-fiddling she did in her spare time.

            “We’re coming up on the room.”

            Keith kept his voice low enough for Allura to hear and low enough that it didn’t echo around the halls. She gave him a tight nod and kept her eyes peeled, probably looking over the same map he was.

            Meanwhile, Lance continued stirring on his shoulders, grunting every so often, whimpering just as much.

            Keith had been running with his heart in pieces for a while now.

            “Lotor must still be trying to get through to him,” Keith said. “We have to get that earpiece out.”

            They hadn’t had the time, on the run for their lives. So far, they’d just been operating on the hope that Lance would stay unconscious long enough for them to get into his mindscape without another fight. At the least, if it came down to it, it was two on one, and Lance didn’t have a weapon anymore.

            “Here,” Allura said suddenly, and grabbed Keith’s wrist, and slammed his hand down on one of the many print-pads they’d seen around the base. The door opened up for them, and they ducked inside. They didn’t relax even when the door fell shut—not until the heavy footfalls of frantic soldiers passed by them without confrontation, not until voices calling out to _find the Paladins and eliminate them at once_ faded away to nothing.

            “Alright,” Keith breathed out, and finally let Lance down from his shoulders. He held up Lance’s limp body, long enough to sit down, and then slowly eased Lance into his lap, against his chest, head on his shoulder.

            Lance: whimpering, grunting, but ultimately safe in his arms.

            Maybe another time, Keith would’ve kept himself composed, but in the dimness of the closet, with no one but Allura to witness it, Keith let silent tears slip down his face as he cradled Lance closer. As he did, Allura knelt down next to him, fingers probing his ear, finally finding the tiny gray transmitter. She removed it, and Lance seemed to relax at that. She held it between her fingers, frowning, before she finally placed it on the floor.

            “Keith, are you ready?” she asked softly, then, raising her head.

            Keith looked away from Lance long enough to meet her gaze and nodded.

            He’d never willingly gone into anyone’s mindscape. Allura had entered his twice, on top of entering Lance’s and Varx’s and those of the other Paladins. He’d be following her lead on this one.

            “I need you to close your eyes and concentrate on reaching out to Red and Blue,” Allura whispered. She set down her staff and took one of his hands, and took one of Lance’s in her other. “Find them. Fall away from your body, focus on getting into your head. Focus on getting to _Lance_.”

            As if that hadn’t been one of his biggest focuses over the last two months.

            He heeded her words anyway, eyes closing, breathing slowing.

            _Red...Blue, too, if you_ _’re out there...help me get there. Help me get to him._

            It took a shorter time than Keith expected, and it felt like floating, the way wisps of smoke rose up from a smoldering fire. He could nearly pinpoint the moment he shifted from his physical body back to his mindscape. Unlike before, it was not dark and filled with shadows. There was no control room.

            Just blank white walls, a blank white floor, and a vortex above, swirling with red and blue.

            _“Reach,”_ Red urged. _“Reach up, Paladin.”_

            So Keith did.

            He stretched one arm high above his head, imagined himself touching the colors, getting lost among them, and the vortex whirled down to meet him, fog-like, and swallowed him whole. He felt his feet leave the ground, felt himself tumble—

            And then a hard landing shattered it.

            He landed unceremoniously on a slab of black, darker than onyx, than obsidian, slippery to the touch. A grunt sounded and he turned, and spotted Allura, glowing pale blue as she rose to her feet and approached him.

            “I imagine this is what Red and Blue felt, trying to connect with him.”

            She gestured to the ground below them.

            Keith didn’t get to his feet. He ran a hand over the surface, the sensation sending tingles through his body—unpleasant, strange, and he felt it again, that feeling of something fighting beneath his skin—

            _Shit._

            “We think Lance was drugged, right?” Keith asked.

            Allura walked toward him, nodding slowly. “Yes.”

            “And Lotor doesn’t have any druids strong enough to control him, so he _had_ to turn to drugging him. But this—you know what I’m getting at, right? You feel it?”

            Allura nodded, lips pursed as she took another long look at the surface she stood on, and then slowly lowered herself back to the ground, to join Keith.

            “Lotor never gave up his quintessence experiments, it would appear,” she said. “When a druid wasn’t enough, he must have turned to alchemy. This is the sort of path that led to my father creating Voltron, but he never…he never would have gone so far as to use quintessence as a weapon like this.”

            In his mind’s eye, Keith saw Lance again—motionless, emotionless, waiting for orders.

            “Is there any way to reverse it without a pod?” Keith asked.

            Allura didn’t answer right away. Her gaze became focused on the surface, fingers splaying out across it. They sparked blue as she dragged her nails along—sparked blue, and then faded away.

            “I don’t know,” she answered. “The drug appeared to have similar effects to what was done to Lance on Eddul—Eddulan scientists, I assume, must have had a hand in creating this. If we can get into Lance’s mindscape, _perhaps_ we have a chance. He’ll still need a pod, no matter what, but…maybe just for his injuries. If we can get through to him.”

            Keith nodded, a lump settling painfully in his throat, while a new conviction settled in his bones.

            It had taken time, for Lance to find his way into Keith’s heart and make a home there. Shiro had been the first, and after his disappearances, the walls Keith had constructed for himself turned from brick to steel, supposedly impenetrable. If no one got in, he couldn’t be hurt. But no matter how hard he pushed back, no matter how high he’d built his walls, Lance had been ready. He’d been patient and steady and one day…one day they’d fallen, one after the other.

            Lance had done it without prompting, a favor without need of return.

            Keith was going to return it anyway.

* * *

            It was the first time he’d entered his mindscape since connecting with the Lions, and he was _suffocating._

            Lance pinpointed the moment he made the shift from his body to this prison, and a good thing—he couldn’t see, and couldn’t _move._ The darkness was almost tangible, crushing him, while every sound around him amplified, shaking him hard enough that he could feel his teeth rattle.

            Lotor’s voice had been the _worst,_ up until it vanished altogether.

            The voices he’d heard afterward, his one reprieve from this hell, the one thing letting him know he was in good care, had also vanished. Keith and Allura, anchors keeping him sane, were utterly _silent_ ; his last tethers to the physical world, _gone._ Already, Lance struggled to recall their last words. Something about finding? Reaching?

            _Reach me._

            Lance’s thoughts thundered around him, a new headache blooming in the middle of his forehead.

            He slumped down—or was he already?—and closed his eyes—not much of a difference, considering he couldn’t see anything anyway—and resigned himself to waiting for whatever came next. Eventually, he’d have to wake up. Eventually, he’d be opening his eyes to either the team, or to another lab, or to his room on Lotor’s ship, or Lotor’s room.

            The first one was a hope. The last three were far more likely. The base had been crawling with guards when he went down, enough to overwhelm the team, enough to get them _captured,_ and if they’d been captured—if they’d been _captured,_ and he hadn’t been able to do anything to _stop it_ —

            _Useless._

_Puppet._

_All your fault, as usual._

_Still can_ _’t stand up for yourself, huh?_

            Each word pounded around him, sent a wave of shame rolling over him, caused the jagged fissure of his headache to split open further. He grasped his head and hunched in over himself, breathing shallow. Was it just him? Was the air here growing thinner? One hand traveled down to his throat, clawing, as he sucked in air desperately, and his vision blurred, colors—

            Colors?

            _Colors._

            Lance looked up sharply as cracks spiderwebbed across black walls, red and blue light seeping—

            _Red. Blue. Are you there?_

            Lance rocketed to his feet, raced forward, and smacked into something invisible. His hands flew out in front of him, probing, not unlike the way a mime felt out the parameters of their imaginary box. The more light seeped in, the more he got an idea of what was happening: his mindscape had changed, again. This time, it wasn’t a control room, nor a platform surrounded by an angry ocean. It was a jar, big enough to contain him.

            _Red—Blue, please—_

_“Lance?”_

            It wasn’t the Lions. Lance’s heart shot to his throat.

            “K-Keith?”

            One crack shot up the wall, far quicker than the others, and more followed suit, spreading out in every direction.

            _“Lance, can you hear me?”_

            _Hallucination,_ one of the voices in Lance’s head hissed.

            _“Lance, I’m real—answer me,_ please _—_ _”_

            “Keith!” Lance smashed a fist against the glass of the jar, and another, over and over. “Keith, I’m here!”

            The ground trembled. Lance braced his hands against the side of the jar as he stumbled, fissures racing across the ceiling, bringing down bits of black rock that clanged off of the top of the jar—the sealed top. No wonder he’d had trouble breathing. He could barely make out holes, barely any space to let air in.

            _“Lance—”_

_“I hear him!”_

            Keith wasn’t alone—Allura was here too— _are they the only ones, who else is here—?_

            A bright burst of light had Lance letting go of the wall, had him covering his eyes as something in front of him exploded, the area filling with bright swirls of red and blue, colors Lance could make out in his periphery, while energy rushed through his system with such a force that he stumbled again, back hitting the other side of the jar.

            _Red. Blue._

            _“Lance, we’re here,”_ Blue purred around him, voice echoing.

            Lance’s vision blurred again, and he choked on something like a laugh.

            “Lance!”

            Lance couldn’t bring himself to push off of the wall as he looked up, and saw two figures rushing forward—one in pink armor, and one in red.

            “Holy shit—Lance—!”

            Keith rushed around the side of the jar to the wall Lance was leaning against and practically collapsed against it. Lance turned to face him, tears streaking down his cheeks, and found Keith in a similar state.

            “Keith—”

            “We’re going to get you out of here,” Keith interrupted, a single sob escaping him. “I’m sorry—I’m so sorry it took this long.”

            Keith pressed his palms and forehead against the glass, and Lance followed suit.

            “ _I_ _’m_ sorry I got us into this mess in the first place,” Lance whispered.

            “No—no, you didn’t. Do you understand me?” Keith’s head snapped up, a fire burning in his gaze, and Lance wanted to throw himself in it, get lost in the heat and flames. “You—you did everything you could to try and get us out of that. You did the best you could.”

            “I hate to interrupt this,” Allura’s voice cut in, “but we’re short on time. Lance, we’ll need your help to get you out of here. This is your mindscape, and it’s time you took it back.”

            Lance looked up, hands never leaving the spaces where Keith’s were. He nodded mutely, swallowed back his words and his cries.

            “We don’t know what will happen after this,” Allura said, “but no matter what, we’re going to get you out of here. We’re bringing you home.”

            _Home._

            Lance’s heart shuddered as he looked away from Allura, and back at Keith, eyes glistening.

            “Alright,” he whispered.

            “Reach out, Lance. Blue and Red are here. Reach out to them. This is _your mind—_ Lotor cannot have hold over you here.”

            _But he did,_ the words reverberated around them.

            “Not anymore,” Allura said. “Concentrate.”

            She, too, pressed her palms against the glass of the jar, and fell silent. Lance and Keith did the same, bowing their heads. Lance could practically feel the warmth of Keith’s palms, even through the glass, even through the gloves of Keith’s flightsuit. Lance latched onto it—latched onto heat, on fire and flame, on ice and water, pressed his forehead against the coolness of the glass and imagined it shattering, just as the walls had.

            Blue’s energy pulsed around him, a steady heartbeat Lance hadn’t felt in forever—not since the last time they’d formed Voltron, not even when he’d reconnected with Blue and Red before. Then Red’s own energy linked up, intertwined with Blue’s, while a third and fourth heartbeat sounded, one much faster than the other.

            Keith and Allura.

            _Come back to us._

            Lance heard the words loud and clear, Keith’s voice echoing around his mindscape.

            _I_ _’m here. I’m coming._

Blue and red light, and then blinding white—

* * *

            Keith jolted back into his physical body with a gasp. Next to him, Allura did the same, one hand flying to her head as she groaned and leaned against the wall.

            “Did it work?” she mumbled, fingers massaging her temples.

            Keith glanced down at the form in his arms, breath catching in the back of his throat as Lance stirred.

            And stirred.

            With a soft moan, his eyes fluttered open, and no longer were they distant, no longer were they void of emotion. They were glassy as a tentative smile ghosted Lance’s lips, as he met Keith’s gaze.

            “Hey, Mullet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :) there's at least two chapters plus an epilogue left, i think
> 
> (that's the same thing i've said for the last three updates whoops)
> 
> SEE Y'ALL IN THE NEXT ONE


	34. The One in Which Two Forces Collide, Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Voltron doesn't really have an issue infiltrating a location...it's usually _leaving_ that's the problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i fucking cried as soon as this chapter was done bc the freakin STARBOUND SOUNDTRACK MAN
> 
> vast immortal suns started playing an i??? am an emotional weakling
> 
> ANYWAY
> 
> **trigger warnings for graphic violence, injury, minor character death (off-page...sort of...ish...), near-death experiences, implied beginning to a panic attack, etc...really if you've read this far none of this should be new but ANYWAY**

Chapter 34

            “Hey, Mullet.”

            Lance’s smile was weak, pained. His eyes watered, and he blinked, tears slipping down the sides of his face. His voice itself was hoarse, soft, full of affection that hadn’t had release in two months. He reached up a hand to cup Keith’s cheek, fingers featherlight. Keith pressed his hand over Lance’s and leaned into his touch, and made no move to hide his own tears, no move to stop his sniffling.

            “Hey, Sharpshooter,” Keith whispered back to him. “Told you we wouldn’t leave you.”

            Keith pulled Lance closer with his other arm, into a gentle hug. Lance wound his free arm around Keith’s neck and buried his face there. He didn’t care about the armor of Keith’s Paladin suit, digging into his cheek, nor did he care about the chestplate between them. Keith was still infinitely safer and infinitely warmer and infinitely softer than anyone else here.

            “I thought I told you to get Red and Blue and not worry about me,” Lance murmured, and Keith’s grip on him tightened as he drew in a sharp breath.

            “And I thought I told you we weren’t gonna do that,” Keith responded. “You’re one of us, and I…”

            Lance started nodding. “I-I know.”

            He and Keith both fell silent after that, syncing breaths, reassuring the other without saying a word. Allura watched them, frowning as she stood up, using the wall as a support, and made her way over to the door on quiet feet, listening hard for sounds coming from the hallway. There was nothing, aside from the alarms that had begun blaring some time ago. No soldiers, no princes, no other Paladins.

            This was their chance to move.

            She looked back at Keith and Lance again, at the way they clutched each other, and the way Keith’s hand rubbed slow circles into Lance’s back.

            “Keith, Lance, I hate to break this up…”

            She wrung her hands as the two of them stiffened just the slightest, Keith raising his head and meeting her eyes, before pulling back slightly.

            “You’re right,” Keith said quietly. “If we wanna get out of here, we have to move while we can.”

            He rose along with Lance, slowly, steadily, checking him over as they did—hands brushing over his arms, hands, his torso and shoulders. He stopped at Lance’s face, fingers barely framing it, and swallowed thickly, before brushing back Lance’s bangs, out of his eyes.

            “I’m sorry it took so long,” Keith whispered. He ran a thumb along the thin cut on Lance’s cheek, chest tightening.

            “Please don’t apologize,” Lance responded, just as softly. “You’re here now, aren’t you?”

            Lance’s eyes locked onto Keith’s, before drifting down.

            “Yeah,” Keith replied hoarsely, and followed; his eyes closed, and he leaned forward, and suddenly Lance’s mouth was against his. Lance gripped him by the biceps and pulled him in closer, while warmth spread through his system. Keith brought his other hand up to cup the back of Lance’s neck, steadying the both of them.

            It was the steadiest and most sure of himself Keith had felt in forever, steadier than the last two months, steadier than the last year. At last, his boat found shore, his anchor landed, there was some finish line he’d finally crossed, after running until he couldn’t breathe. New air found him, rejuvenated him, brought everything into sharper focus.

            In a life where he’d stumbled along, path obscured by the smoke of everything burning around him, he’d finally found water to douse the flames, to clear the way, to guide him home.

            “I love you.”

            The words did not wrestle their way from the deepest recesses of his heart, did not fight to leave his mouth, did not leave him cold and panicked. They spilled effortlessly out of him, natural in the same way he breathed. There was no more questioning about it—no more wondering if this was an infatuation that would fade if given time, no more worrying about how to approach the subject.

            Keith knew it in his core, in every inch of his soul: he loved Lance McClain.

            Lance nearly froze; he pulled away, long enough to look Keith—truly look at him in a way he hadn’t been able to for what seemed like a lifetime. Keith’s expression was soft, echoing the way he’d looked that night, when they’d been in each others’ arms, completely unaware of the events that would go down in the coming days. The night when Lance realized with Earth-shattering clarity the way his heart yearned for Keith Kogane: wholly, undeniably.

            “I love you, too.”

            Once upon a time, Lance had planned out, down to a T, the way his life’s one epic romance would go down. He would be the Galaxy Garrison’s star pilot, going off every now and again on dangerous missions to the farthest reaches of the universe—dreams, back then, nothing but innocent fantasies—only to come back home a hero, with new proof of alien life, perhaps an ambassador or two aboard his ship. He’d run down the boarding ramp and sweep his waiting, devoted lover into his arms, and when they proclaimed they loved him, and missed him, and they were glad he was safe, he was going to be cheesy and cliché and quote _Star Wars_ , every bit the badass, Han Solo-style rogue he was meant to be.

            Just like most other of his plans, this one never came to fruition—and Lance was okay with it.

            Space was scarier and more dangerous than he’d ever anticipated, and his time could run out at any minute. He couldn’t afford to waste away his hours pretending to be something he wasn’t.

            Besides—no amount of badassery was worth more than the flush that raced across Keith’s cheeks.

            “Keith, Lance…”

            Lance didn’t _want_ to break away from Keith. If they hadn’t been on a mission, he could have stayed there forever, and he was certain Keith felt the same. But he turned anyway, toward Allura. She stood awkwardly by the door, face burning, like she knew she’d seen something that maybe she shouldn’t have, a moment not meant for her eyes.

            Lance couldn’t bring himself to be sorry about it.

            Apparently, neither could Keith.

            Keith took his time letting go, and even when he did, when his hand dropped back down to his side, he slid it into Lance’s, lacing their fingers together, squeezing tight. Lance squeezed back and took a tiny step closer to him.

            “Are you ready?” Allura asked.

            Keith stole a glance at Lance and nodded.

            “Alright then.” Allura switched on her comms—Keith heard the message loud and clear, heart soaring: “Paladins, we’ve recovered Lance. I repeat, Keith and I have recovered Lance.”

* * *

            It was a myth and a lie that Shiro had always claimed the moral high ground during his first stint as a Galra prisoner.

            His becoming the Champion might have been a fluke, a victory won based on nothing but adrenaline and the need to survive for his family back on Earth; for the two Holts suffering with him, if he ever wanted to even _hope_ of bringing them back home. Many of his other fights might have played out in the same way: two prisoners with the unfortunate luck of being pitted against each other, one just slightly _more_ unfortunate, to have been pitted against _Shiro_.

            Those were the prisoners he had remorse for: the lost causes, the aliens who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time, the people who'd been thrown in his path as an obstacle against his freedom. He remembered a lot of them, far too many, and some still showed up in his dreams to haunt him. Those were the ones he lost sleep over and felt poorly for it.

            But there was one he’d killed mercilessly, one he’d kill again if given the chance. He was a monster of a prisoner, brutal even before being captured by the Galra. He made a sport out of terrorizing the other prisoners in his cell block, and as fate would have it, that cell block happened to be the same one occupied by Shiro and the Holts.

            Shiro could not burn the memory of different shades of blood running over the ground in that cell block, the one time the prisoner, a tank by the name of Obfesto, had broken out and started attacking the others. He could not forget the terror on Matt’s face as green blood splattered so violently that it painted his face.

            Flash forward several months. Between the riot and Shiro’s becoming the Champion, they’d never faced off in the arena—not until that particular day.

            There were some fights in which neither prisoner died, usually because the fighter favored by the Galra was clearly losing, and the fight was called off. That day, the Galra pitted Shiro against Obfesto. Every odd had been in Obfesto’s favor. He was bigger than Myzax, an opponent so terrifying that weaker prisoners would have died before actually engaging in combat. He was the one favored by Sendak and his subordinates. By all means, Shiro should not have survived that fight.

            But spite worked wonders.

            The fight had reached a point in which it was clear that Shiro had the upper hand, a point at which the commentators and the referee soldier in charge were calling it all off. Shiro hadn’t listened—he continued to attack without mercy, until Obfesto was dead. Until he’d had to be dragged out of the arena, kicking and screaming. He should’ve died that afternoon, against Obfesto, at the hands of those in charge. Instead, he was brought to Haggar.

            That same protective fury drove him now, in his fight against Lotor.

            In the last two months, Lotor had done nothing but terrorize his team—innocent _kids_ who shouldn’t have been out here fighting a war in the first place. He’d sent all of them into a healing pod, at least once. Pidge, he’d almost taken when his forces shot at her, on a planet rigged to explode, a third Holt added to the list of ones Shiro had failed to protect. Hunk, going down trying to protect Pidge and Shiro on Tarvin Two, as the Eruda Center collapsed on top of them. Keith, sent out to his death, time and time again. Lance, kidnapped and forced into living out Lotor’s twisted fantasies.

            _Children,_ being scarred just for trying to protect the innocent.

            Shiro jumped up and punched down with his GalraTech hand, and Lotor rolled out of the way and sprang back to his feet. His work with his sword was fanciful, twirls and arcs meant to distract while he searched for one of Shiro’s weak spots. Shiro refused to be distracted—not again, when it had cost his team so much before.

            When Lotor went in for another stab, Shiro grabbed at the hilt of the blade with his GalraTech hand and swung, hard. Lotor kept his grip and went flying along with the sword as Shiro released it, careening into a wall. The Black Paladin expected Lotor to crumple upon impact, but Lotor shook it off and got back to his feet, lips pulling back into a snarl.

            “I don’t give up so _easily,_ Champion.”

            That much was evident from the burns along Lotor’s suit, and the scorched piercing near his knee. No doubt, Pidge had gotten to him before—and somehow, he still stood, still fought back, still rushed at Shiro. Shiro didn’t sidestep, didn’t duck out of the way. He charged right back, drawing Lotor’s attention to his GalraTech hand.

            Then he swung out with the red bayard.

            _“Paladins, we’ve recovered Lance. I repeat, Keith and I have recovered Lance. Begin phase two—move for the Lions at once!”_

            Allura’s voice was too loud in his ear. Shiro’s swing missed—Lotor parried and shoved, and while Shiro wasted just the briefest second trying to regain his footing, Lotor kicked.

            Right in his stomach injury.

            Shiro fell onto his back with a gasp of pain, bayard flying from his hands, skidding across the floor, deactivating, while his chestplate shattered. Lotor sprinted past him for the bayard, and Shiro reached out at the last second and grabbed at his ankle. He brought Lotor down with one sharp yank, and his chin hit the floor with a crack.

            “Team,” Shiro breathed into his comms at that moment, “I need backup _now_.”

            _“I’m coming,”_ Keith replied, almost immediately. _“I’ve got your location.”_

            Shiro picked up on voices shouting in the background, Keith saying something about getting to Blue and Red, and that he’d catch up. Moments later, Allura’s voice came back through.

            _“Pidge, Hunk, get to Varx’s ship and recover the Green and Yellow Lions_ immediately _. Tiva, prepare for an evacuation. Lance and I are heading for Blue and Red right now. Shiro, Keith is on his way._ _”_

            Splitting up. Splitting up was realistically the only way to get things done in a timely manner, as it was Shiro himself now holding them all up, but it still sent a flare of anxiety rocketing through him. Splitting up was how they’d gotten into this mess in the first place, and their escapes tended to be messy even as one unit, and especially in situations like this.

            “Attention personnel,” Lotor grunted then, scrambling back to his feet. A gash across his chin dripped blood, while other drops ran down his neck. “Lift lockdown on Sector Eleven and send soldiers _immediately._ Stop the Paladins at all costs!”

            _Get up._

            Shiro began rising, only to have Lotor rush him again. He dropped back down and rolled, and then shot to his feet and took off in the other direction, away from Lotor, toward his fallen bayard. Lotor ran after him—and then a sword grazed his side. Lotor swore in Galran behind him as the sword ripped open his flightsuit, ripped flesh, but missed its mark by far too many inches.

            It gave Shiro just enough time to swipe at the red bayard when Lotor gave up and tackled him, and knocked it from his hands. Again.

            Even being attacked, Shiro had the upper hand—quite literally. Neither of them had weapons except for themselves, and it was Lotor’s two fists against Shiro’s flesh fist and GalraTech fist. Shiro swung at Lotor as he went down—Lotor straddling his stomach, aiming to pin him—and socked Lotor in the jaw. Lotor grit his teeth and swallowed his scream of pain, one hand reaching for Shiro’s neck, exposed without the armor to cover it.

            Lotor pressed down hard and fast, while Shiro gasped. Lotor used his free hand to pin down Shiro’s GalraTech hand, biting down hard on his lip as the hand flared up purple, in an effort to burn Lotor and get him to let go. Shiro’s other hand remained free. He tried to swing, but Lotor readjusted and brought up a foot to pin it down, while the hand on his neck squeezed tighter.

            “You just couldn’t bear the thought of sacrificing dear brother or his lover, could you?” Lotor hissed. “What a tragedy. Now _they_ _’ll_ have to learn to live without _you._ ”

            Most of the Galra had claws. It was a fact Shiro had known, being manhandled by them in his time as a prisoner—he still had long scars somewhere down his back, from one of the nastier guards, another brushstroke in the painting of pain he had to show for his abuse.

            He’d merely hoped that Lotor, only part-Galra, would be an exception to this rule.

            Having Lotor’s claws digging into his neck and drawing blood just proved him wrong.

            …Okay, so maybe he didn’t have the upper hand.

            “What a shame,” Lotor hissed, as Shiro’s face began turning blue, “that your reign as Champion couldn’t even end in front of an audience.”

            A gasp sounded, then, and Lotor looked up, vicious smile growing wider.

            “Or maybe it _will._ ”

* * *

            Tiva knew the moment Varx woke up, and then continued on pretending to be asleep, even through the message from Princess Allura. One didn’t get by as a Blade of Marmora member during Lotor’s purge without being on their toes at all times, without noticing every last detail.

            Still, she acted as though nothing happened to be out of the ordinary, like the team’s plan wasn’t falling to pieces around them. Until Varx acted out, or until the ship’s crew acted out, she could continue to do nothing but monitor the rest of the plan.

            Tiva had two screens in front of her. One was a map of the Paladins’ locations aboard Central Command. She watched a green dot and yellow dot move practically in sync toward the hangar containing Varx’s ship, containing their Lions. A black dot moved sporadically, dancing around a purple dot meant to represent Lotor, a dot Tiva and Pidge programmed in the minute the Paladins were gone. It had been an oversight, before, but they needed a visual on the Emperor.

            Then there was the matter of the pink, red, and blue dots.

            The pink and blue ones were supposed to be making their procession toward the hangar containing Red and Blue, and had been, for the most part, up until a second ago.

            Tiva watched them more closely, keeping the red dot in her periphery as it moved for the black dot.

            The blue and pink dots had come to a standstill. If they were speaking to each other, then they’d turned their comms back off. Tiva frowned and switched hers on, just as the blue dot took off—in the opposite direction of the hangar. In the same direction the red dot had gone.

            “Princess, what’s happening?”

            Tiva asked the question down her direct link to Allura. She didn’t need the others worrying about something that could have been minor.

            _“Lance went back to help Keith. He refuses to be separated again—Lotor has had a fixation upon fighting Keith and Shiro, and Lance fears for them.”_

            Allura sounded exasperated, like this was a topic they’d already gone over.

            “There’s nothing you can do about that,” Tiva replied, and her teeth worried at her lower lip as she watched the red dot close in on the black and purple ones. “We have to get going, I feel like we’re running out of time.”

            Tiva glanced, then, at the second screen, off to her right. It was a map of the battleships near the Milky Way, where the Voltron Alliance had been engaged with the Empire’s forces for some time now, drawing most of the ships further away from the nine planets that made up Earth’s Solar System.

            _Most_ being the key word.

            _“Yes there is,”_ Allura finally said with a sigh, and Tiva’s eyes flicked back to the map of Central Command. The pink dot was moving again, in the same direction the blue one had gone.

            “Allura—”

            _“I’ll be as quick as I can. The more people fighting him, the greater a chance we can take him out, and the sooner we escape. Continue on with your portion of the mission. Make sure Pidge and Hunk get to Green and Yellow, set up some kind of distraction,_ something. _”_

            Tiva didn’t have much of a choice but to obey.

            “Alright. Be quick and _be safe._ ”

            That was all she could say. The Paladins were still faring slightly better than the Milky Way strike team, better than Matt’s small crew of rebels zipping closer and closer to the planets, chasing after a few Galra battleships. Tiva couldn’t break into their communications—every hack she tried failed, either because of distance, or because the commanders in charge jammed everything.

            With a sigh, Tiva switched comm channels.

            “Matt, how are you holding up?”

            An explosion sounded just about then, far too loud for comfort. Matt hissed.

            _“Hanging in there. We’ve still got about twenty fighters and two cruisers to take out before things are clear over here. The rest of ‘em have all been destroyed or aren’t a threat.”_

            Tiva’s eyes scanned over the screen again.

            “Has the Garrison been alerted?”

            _“Yeah, I warned Iverson about—oh not TODAY you motherfucker—about this half an hour ago. Earth’s on code orange right now, I think. If we hit Pluto, we jump to code—OLIA, BLAST THAT THING OFF OUR FIVE—to code red, and I think once they hit Jupiter or Mars we jump to red alert.”_

            “Don’t make it to red alert,” Tiva responded.

            Metal scraping metal drew her attention. She turned her head slightly, one ear twitching, toward where Varx was cuffed to the pipe. Realistically, she shouldn’t have been a threat—not with three pairs of cuffs to keep her at bay. But Tiva realized now that they hadn’t cuffed her legs, nor did they rid her of her other senses.

            _“Pretty sure Iverson is itching for a fight, but Earth is…I wouldn’t say not ready, but defenses will need time to be repaired if there’s an attack. Like…one of those one-use-only kinda things, you—shit!”_

            Alarms blared in the background on Matt’s end. Tiva watched on the screen as his ship suddenly veered off-course, taking far too long to right itself as the ship it had been tailing continued forward.

            _“I’ve gotta go, I’ll be in contact again soon,”_ Matt said suddenly, and cut off the call before Tiva could respond.

            She was left alone with the ship’s crew and the incapacitated commander, waiting for someone to start a mutiny as the Green and Yellow Paladins drew closer.

* * *

            It was the most personal murder Pidge had committed to date.

            _Murder—self-defense—he would_ _’ve died—_

_Move—keep moving—gotta go—the team needs you—_

            Her rope retracted, and her bayard returned to its standard katar form, while the head of the soldier she’d just decapitated sat on the floor, lifeless eyes locked on her, while its fallen helmet lay several more feet away. She stared, couldn’t _stop_ staring, her brain suddenly in a state of _Error 404: Page Not Found_ , every command failing to get a response.

            “Pidge!”

            Hunk—there was a hand on her collar, yanking her to her feet, and they moved on their own accord. She fell into step alongside the Yellow Paladin, who kept casting terrified glances at her, at the blood on her face and hands and all over her armor and _I did that_ and _I would do it again._

            The soldier had Hunk in a headlock, wrestling his helmet off. Pidge had used her bayard to her advantage—the rope wrapped around the neck of the soldier, and she pulled herself up, settling onto his shoulders while she pulled the rope tighter, and turned the voltage all the way up—and then there was a head on the ground, there was a burst of blood—she’d fallen, and then the soldier fell on top of her—but Hunk had gotten free—

            “Pidge, stay with me here,” Hunk said, voice wavering. “You did what you needed to do. It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.”

            Tarvin One. A soldier’s head blowing up right in front of her, body going slack, arms letting her drop. Hunk. Wide-eyed and nearly paralyzed. _Gotta go gotta move gotta get to the Lions something is wrong._

            Stinging heat pushed at the back of Pidge’s eyes. She blinked, furiously, until she was convinced that the wetness in her eyes was just because she’d blinked too hard and too fast. That had to be it.

            _Get to Green. Just get to Green._

            It was then that her Lion reached out to her, presence wrapping around her like a breeze, fresh air into her lungs. Pidge swallowed back something that couldn’t possibly have been a sob, because she didn’t have time to stop and cry, and latched onto her connection to Green to get her through this, while her hand reached for Hunk’s.

            Hunk took her up without question.

            “It’ll be okay,” he repeated, and squeezed her hand, and tugged her along. Pidge was fairly certain that if she stepped the wrong way even once, Hunk would just say _fuck it_ and carry her, and with her mind running haywire, the idea didn’t seem half-bad.

            _Stand up on your own, you have to keep going. You have to get to Green._

            If she got to Green, it meant Hunk got to Yellow, and then the others would be on their ways to Black, Blue, and Red. Then they’d all be gunning for the castleship, and if that happened, it meant the team was back together in one place, after two long months of separation and constant attack and _emptiness_ and—

            _“Breathe, Paladin.”_

            Green’s energy seemed to tighten around her, protective, insistent. Pidge nodded to no one and kept going, even as her breaths turned to gasps and the rush of fresh air that boosted her minutes before faded to nothing.

            _Think. Come on, Pidge._

            Pidge pulled up the map on the left side of her visor and tracked her and Hunk’s progress. They had such a short distance left to go before they reached the hangar containing Varx’s ship and the two Lions they were after. The soldiers they’d gotten away from were still pursuing them, but if they kept their pace up, they should have been cleared…as long as they could also clear the next cropping of them, guarding the hangar door.

            “Tiva, are you still on that ship?” Pidge asked breathlessly.

            _“Yeah, what do you need?”_

            “Look at the map. See the guards on the hangar door?”

            _“…Mmm, yeah, I do.”_

            “We need a way in that involves as little physical fighting on our part as possible. We—we just—bad run-in.”

            Pidge knew, the second her voice caught, that she wouldn’t be able to explain what just happened. Not without panicking again—not when she’d hardly calmed down.

            Tiva seemed to understand.

            _“I’m on it.”_

* * *

            If anyone asked Hunk later why he wasn’t panicking when the soldier was about to _kill him,_ and Pidge hadn’t hesitated to decapitate him with nothing more than the rope from her bayard, he’d say the last few battles had taught him to keep a level head in battle, lest everything go to hell.

            Truthfully, it was only because Pidge was already panicking, and if he lost his cool, then she would shatter entirely, and Hunk wasn’t keen on seeing her fall to pieces. Not just because they were on a critical mission, but because seeing any one of the Paladins breaking down punched him right in the heart—Pidge, especially. At fifteen, sixteen, Hunk was still being pushed around by kids at the Garrison, still being bullied by the instructors who hadn’t given two shits about him, still freaking out over the mere _idea_ of going to space, and questioning every single day why he’d even enlisted.

            Pidge, meanwhile, had started fighting a war, had become their leading tech expert, and had sacrificed far too much to track down her brother and her father, and now her lost teammates.

            If Hunk was still a kid, and Lance and Keith were still kids, then Pidge was _really_ still a kid. She lost out on two years of growing up; if Hunk could get rid of even the tiniest bit of pain for her, he would.

            That was why he kept squeezing her hand as her breaths came in shallow bursts, and why, when they rounded the corner and arrived at the hangar door choked with guards, he angled himself in front of her and activated his bayard. He fired without warning, but Pidge was ready. After all, he heard her conversation with Tiva—she knew before he did what they were about to face. The least Hunk could do was buy her a few more seconds to get her bearings.

            _“I’m getting the door open now. Prepare to take cover!”_

            Hunk had no time to question Tiva’s words. The hangar door had already started creaking as it opened, speaking to obvious repairs that needed to be made, while the guards started shouting amongst each other, demanding to know who’d opened it up, as none of _them_ had been given clearance. An engine revved in the hangar, and Hunk deactivated his bayard and started moving back, shoving Pidge behind him. Pidge raised no protest—she merely glanced behind them to make sure the other soldiers and guards weren’t converging on them.

            _“Get down!”_

            Hunk turned around and hunched over Pidge at the same second the walls blew in.

            Heat rushed through the hallway with a roar as metal ripped to shreds; as soldiers flew by, shrieking. Hunk activated his helmet, his face mask sealing and supplying him with oxygen from his suit. Below him, Pidge did the same, as gravity shifted around them. Hunk got back to full height when he was certain the way was clear, and turned around to see a gaping hole where the wall had been, giving way to an open hangar.

            _“Gravity stabilizers in this sector have been compromised,”_ Tiva said. _“Thank me later.”_

            “What _was_ that?” Pidge demanded, breathless as she and Hunk activated their jetpacks and made for the ship in the hangar. The gangway was still lowered, but the ship itself was already hovering off the ground, drifting closer to the open hangar door.

            _“It’s called_ Tiva saving your butts _, thank you,_ _”_ Tiva said.

            Something about the statement rubbed Hunk the wrong way, especially when he glanced at Pidge again, and saw the way her jaw tightened, and her fingers twitched around the handle of her bayard. But he kept quiet, because Tiva had gotten them out of the situation with no lasting injuries, and now they had a clear path to their Lions.

            A slightly charred path, but a path nonetheless.

            “Tiva, seriously, _what did you do?_ ” Hunk asked.

            _“Low-power laser cannon. Should have been enough to tear through several walls, but not enough to obliterate the entire base, or even get all the way through the sector,”_ Tiva answered, after a sigh.

            If that was low-power, then Hunk didn’t want to know what medium-power or high-power or whatever others the ship had could do.

            _Could_ _’ve just said that to begin with,_ Hunk thought, but didn’t voice it. He was just tense because of the mission, and that was it. Once they got back to the castle, when the whole team was finally back together, he could relax, do some stress baking, and then collapse into a long nap.

            He just had to get through this first.

            He and Pidge arrived at the gangway and pulled themselves in—Hunk first, Pidge second—and entered the bridge. Hunk activated his bayard again, cautiously, and the two of them stalked forward. Here, the gravity stabilizers were somewhat working, their steps just a little lighter and a little bouncier than usual. Not optimal conditions for a fight, if one broke out, but nothing they couldn’t handle.

            Or, it _should have_ been nothing they couldn’t handle.

            Hunk’s eyes swept the room. Varx was still chained to the pipe, as far as he could tell, and Tiva still had a handle on things. The crew continued milling about, working at computers—or at least, feigning work to seem busy. Inconspicuous. Hunk tightened his grip on the handle of his bayard as he and Pidge approached Tiva.

            “Are we all good to go?” Hunk asked.

            Tiva turned away from the two screens in front of her, quick assessments of which gave Hunk the status of both the ongoing battle in the Milky Way (could have been better, but also much worse) and the other Paladins aboard Central Command (all converging on the same spot— _not good_ ).

            “You should have clear paths to your Lions,” she said. “I would act now. The others have engaged with Lotor, but if we can draw his attention away from the fight, and onto getting troops dispatched to take down two Voltron Lions, you can buy yourselves time—”

            Laughter from the spot where Varx was chained made Tiva stop. She, Hunk, and Pidge turned, while movement below their platform ceased.

            “Quiet, Commander,” Tiva said, voice low as she slowly drew her gun, turned the safety off, stepped closer. “You’re powerless here.”

            Hunk and Pidge flanked Tiva, Hunk on the left and Pidge on the right. Even with the Marmorite between them, though, Hunk kept a careful eye on Pidge, and cast a single glance at the officers down below. They’d all turned their attention to the platform, and Hunk caught more than one hand inching toward a concealed weapon.

            “You think your plan will work?”

            Varx raised her head, a vicious smile on her face, eyes bright.

            “We’ve faced worse with less,” Hunk interjected, voice stronger than he thought it would be.

            “You’ve faced worse with a complete team, and a complete Voltron,” Varx said. “Not missing two Paladins and two Lions.”

            Her smile widened, if such a thing was possible. Pidge, Hunk, and Tiva all glanced at each other, a sinking feeling sweeping over the three of them.

            “Run,” Tiva ordered, voice hollow, and raised the gun to Varx’s head. “Get to the Lions! _Go!_ ”

            Hunk and Pidge didn’t need to be told twice—not when Tiva’s voice shot up several octaves, especially not when the first explosion went off, and blew them toward the bridge exit.

* * *

            “Or maybe it _will._ ”

            Maybe seeing Shiro on the ground with his oxygen supply being cut off at Lotor’s hand should’ve made him pause, should’ve made him stop to listen, and see what else Lotor had to threaten while he looked for a better way to handle things than just running in and stabbing. But Shiro was too busy trying to breathe to tell him anything important, and Keith was _sick and tired_ of hearing Lotor taunting him.

            Keith bolted. He summoned the black bayard and let it transform into a sword at the same time his Marmora blade elongate and launched himself at Lotor. Lotor stopped, mid-monologue, and released Shiro with a screech as Keith tackled him. His hands wrapped around both of Keith’s wrists, stopping the blades inches from his face as they went into a roll, while Shiro sat up with a gasp, hands flying to his throat.

            “It took you long enough, Red Paladin!” Lotor sing-songed as he ended up on top of Keith, hands sliding over his and forcing his blades down toward his throat. “Do you have _any idea_ how long I’ve been waiting for this?”

            “Too long,” Keith grunted. “I don’t know whether that makes you a sadist or a masochist.”

            Speaking on the human race alone, Keith was not the largest. He was shorter than he liked, but he’d stopped growing a long time ago. The few days he spent out of the pod were not enough to get the muscles he had back to maximum working order. Lotor, on the other hand, was a seasoned fighter, excellent even for the Galra’s standards.

            He was also bigger than Keith.

            “Does it matter?” Lotor laughed back.

            Keith’s arms shook as Lotor pressed down harder. Lotor’s grin widened, and his eyes narrowed, alight with bloodlust. Keith growled in the back of his throat and still tried to fight back anyway. Kicking out would do him no good— his legs couldn’t reach as far as they needed to, and he would only lose focus on keeping the swords away from his throat.

            “Of course,” Keith bit out. “Gonna need it for your _fucking epitaph._ ”

            “You really believe you can best me? Like this?”

            And the blades drew closer. Keith turned his wrists, just the slightest, and the flat side of the black bayard’s sword grazed his chin as he dipped it, in an effort to protect his neck.

            “Face it, Paladin,” Lotor said, “you’ll never best me. Not in combat, not in wits...not with _Blue_.”

            “Leave him out of this,” Keith snarled. “This is between _us_ now.”

            Between them, and going to end soon if Keith couldn’t get out from underneath Lotor. His arms were seconds away from giving out underneath Lotor’s weight. If he could just roll—

            Keith yelped as something came flying at Lotor from behind and tackled him. Lotor’s grasp on Keith’s hands had been too strong, and sharp claws raked through the gloves as Lotor was torn away. Keith shot to his feet with another grunt and flexed his wrists, while Shiro and Lotor wrestled on the floor a few feet away.

            _Now_ _’s the chance._

_Go._

            In the two months he’d been separated from the team, Keith caused more deaths and committed more direct murders than he’d ever wanted. Needless lives taken, because people were just trying to do their jobs and go about their daily lives. Blood spilt because he couldn’t control himself, because he’d allowed himself to give in to his rage.

            _Never again,_ he’d told himself. He wouldn’t go back to the place he’d been on Eddul, on Ruovi, on Chincee.

            This time, he could make an exception.

            Keith let loose a guttural yell as he charged at Lotor— Lotor, trying to hurt _Shiro_ , after he’d already caused the team enough suffering.

            “Keith!” Shiro shouted, as Keith made to close the distance. “The red bayard!”

            The words almost didn’t get through.

            Almost.

            Keith spun, target changing. He sprinted for the red bayard and swiped it from the ground, careening into the wall and rolling with the impact, changing course again, heading for Lotor and Shiro.

            “Shiro!”

            By now, Lotor had managed to bring the battle up from the ground, and he and Shiro wrestled on their feet—Shiro trying to get a blade away from his face, and Lotor trying to stab him. Shiro ducked down at that moment and let Lotor’s own momentum carry him forward, over his back. Lotor yelped and hit the floor. At that moment, Shiro locked eyes with Keith, and Keith chucked the black bayard across the room.

            Shiro caught it in one hand and let it transform into his sword, and swung the blade down. Lotor lifted his own up to meet it, and the two swords clanged, while Keith sprinted for them both.

            Lotor vaulted up, spun, and lunged, stabbing out, aiming for one of Shiro’s ribs. Shiro side-stepped, started to spin back. While he withdrew his blade, drawing Lotor’s eyes to it, he slashed out with his blazing GalraTech hand, and caught the side of Lotor’s armor. Lotor leapt back, stifling a scream in the back of his throat, and ended up right in Keith’s oncoming attack.

            He turned just in time to let the blow glance off his other side, instead of going straight through the back. Keith growled and stabbed out with his second blade, but Lotor was already ducking down and sweeping a leg out. Keith jumped over it, just in time for Lotor to swing his sword at Keith’s head. Keith dropped, and Shiro attacked from the other side.

            “What a treat!” Lotor snapped. “I get to fight the brothers at _once!_ ”

            He was losing ground—Keith could tell that much from the way Lotor jogged back, in an effort to put distance between them so he could gather himself, to strategize in those precious few seconds. Shiro wasted no time closing that gap, while Lotor started laughing, blocking, shouting into his communicator to send backup _immediately_.

            And then a shot from across the room blew the communicator right off of his wrist.

            Keith couldn’t afford to turn and look at the door, but only one person had aim like that.

            “You rang?” Lance’s voice cut across the room, dripping with sarcasm.

* * *

            It really could have been worse.

            Pidge’s ears rang. She blinked stars out of her eyes as she raised her head, and something wet and warm slid over her top lip, over her bottom lip, down her chin, and splattered against the bottom of her now-cracked helmet. Just a few feet away from her, Hunk was wheezing. His helmet, too, was cracked all along the visor, a whole chunk of it missing.

            “Hunk—?”

            “I’m good, I’m good.”

            Pidge stood slowly, testing her legs—they seemed to be in fine working order, if not sore from the impact. She made her way over to Hunk and stretched out her hand. While Hunk took it, grunting and wincing as he got to his feet, Pidge looked back, and discovered the whole front end of the ship had been obliterated. Bodies littered the ground around Pidge, while soldiers from the hangar moved in for the wreckage.

            Amongst the carnage—amongst the twisted metal and broken wires and the _dead_ , Pidge spotted Tiva, and something inside of her shattered.

            “Tiva! _Tiva!_ ”

            She lunged for her as soon as Hunk was on two feet, wrenching her hand from his grasp. It didn’t matter that the soldiers were moving in—Tiva had been helping them, had been feeding them important information, had become something of a _friend._ Without her, the team would have still been struggling to get at Lotor, would never have known the depth of his attacks on the Blade of Marmora and his conquests, would never have gotten Keith back.

            “Pidge!” Hunk shouted, and took off after her. “We’ve gotta go—!”

            “ _I_ _’m not leaving her!_ ” Pidge yelled back as she crashed to her knees next to Tiva’s limp body. “We’re taking her with us, do you understand me?”

            To his credit, Hunk only gaped at her for two seconds, and not five or six like he might’ve under other circumstances. Just shut his mouth, gave Pidge a firm nod, and then bent down to gather up Tiva’s form. As soon as she was secure in Hunk’s arms, he and Pidge took off running. Pidge activated her shield to block incoming blaster fire as she and Hunk broke for the section of the ship that hadn’t been completely destroyed, where Green and Yellow were.

            “Hunk, can you scan for biorhythms?”

            Pidge’s breaths were shallow again.

            “Yeah,” Hunk said. “On it right now.”

            Truthfully, scanning for Tiva’s biorhythms was much harder than it should’ve been, between running for his life on a ship that may or may not have had a second bomb rigged up, tripping over debris from the first bomb, and looking through a severely cracked visor—a cracked visor whose computer systems were scrambled to the point of near-illegibility.

            Still, Hunk could just make out the data points indicating that, against all odds, Tiva was still clinging to life.

            “She’s alive,” Hunk said. “We’ve gotta get back to the castle as soon as we can, though.”

            Yeah, she was alive, but from the data Hunk _could_ read—which wasn’t much—she wouldn’t be able to survive for much longer. Not unless she got to a healing pod.

            “Luce, Coran, are either of you nearby?” Hunk asked over the comms. “Pidge and I are getting to Green and Yellow now. We’ve got Tiva, and she needs a pod as soon as possible.”

            _“I can bring the castleship in!”_ Coran chirped. _“Just give me a few ticks to bring down these fighters! They’re giving me more trouble than a Benezean Olver on a hot—”_

            “Coran!” Pidge interrupted. “We got it!”

            Hunk flinched at Pidge shouting as they continued running, while Coran cut himself off with a brief apology…of sorts— _“Yes, of course, Number Five. Hang tight, I’ll be there soon!”_ —and dove right back into battle.

            _“My ships and I can cover you for as long as your trip to the castle is,”_ Luce said, then. _“Any word on the Milky Way team?”_

            “No,” Hunk answered. “Systems on this side are down. There was an explosion that ripped apart half of Varx’s ship. Pidge and I got out of it, but we need to get out of here. We don’t know if there are any more bombs rigged to go off, and we _really_ don’t wanna find out.”

            Luce didn’t respond to that, and neither did Coran. The rest of the team was either preoccupied or didn’t have their comms on at the moment, but that was fine with Hunk. Silence let him focus on reaching out with his mind, seeking Yellow’s pull. Pidge ran alongside him, practically gasping as she drew in her breaths.

            “A little farther, Pidge,” Hunk murmured. “Just a little bit more.”

            Still, every step he took was another step that wore him down. He made it to the hangar door on both feet, but nearly collapsed while Pidge stabbed away at the door controls with her bayard, until the panel fell away. The door whooshed open, giving way to the hulking forms of the Black, Green, and Yellow Lions of Voltron.

            Their jaws were already lowered to the ground. Pidge ran to Yellow with Hunk, just to cover them while he carried Tiva into his Lion. She didn’t leave until Hunk gave her the all-clear, from his pilot’s chair.

            _“I’m good, I’m good. We gotta_ _move._ _”_

            “Yeah,” Pidge agreed.

            She took a second to gather herself, and then sprinted for Green. The energy draped over Pidge’s shoulders seemed to spike as Pidge entered the cockpit and threw herself into the seat, while Green’s jaw closed, and she leaned back, prepared to pounce and get out of the hangar—a hangar that needed to be opened.

            Pidge pulled up different screens around her, systems that had been linked to the ones Tiva had been using before Varx’s ship blew. She paused at the sight of a cluster of dots just starting to scatter—purple and red running in one direction,  while pink and blue and black started off in three other directions.

            “Guys, what’s going on?”

            _“No time,”_ Shiro responded. _“Get back to the castleship.”_

            “Shiro?”

            _“Pidge, Hunk,_ go. _Your leg of the mission is over with. Get back to the castle and help Coran. That_ _’s an_ order. _”_

            Pidge opened her mouth to respond, but closed it as Hunk’s face came up on a new screen to her right. His expression was pained and wary—no doubt, he wanted to question Shiro, too, and no doubt, he was holding back, because he didn’t feel like getting snapped at.

            “You heard him,” Pidge said, even though she wore the same look Hunk did. “There’s nothing we can do, and we’ve gotta save Tiva.”

* * *

            Lotor knew how to pick and choose his battles.

            That was absolutely the reason why, as soon as he heard Lance’s voice, and realized with brutal dismay that he was no longer under his control—that Keith had _actually_ somehow managed to get through to him— _the princess, the princess must have had a hand in it_ —he turned and ran for the exit farthest away from Lance, dodging away from the two brothers bent on attacking.

            It was in no way, shape, or form any indication _whatsoever_ that he might have been _afraid_ of being outnumbered by several Paladins, or _fearful_ of going toe-to-toe against Voltron’s sharpshooter when the gun was turned on him. Oh, no. That would have been _ridiculous._

            No, this move was purely strategy-based, nothing more than an advantage he could use to put himself in better position to take out every last one of the advancing Paladins in a timely manner.

            “Why run, Lotor?” Lance called sharply. “What are you afraid of?”

            See? The Blue Paladin was simply misreading the situation. After all, Lotor had _no reason whatsoever_ to be fearful of the same Paladin he’d been sharing a bed with in the last few months. Not when Lotor knew of his breakdowns, and how desperately he wanted to see his _family_ safe.

            And speaking of family—

            The Red Paladin was apparently their fastest sprinter. As Lotor took off, the Red Paladin gave chase, even though he had no idea the layout of Central Command, no idea where he was going or where Lotor intended to go.

            “Backup, I need more backup _immediately,_ ” Lotor said, over his comms. Again, nothing but _pure strategy._ More weapons pointed at the Paladins meant more of a chance that they wouldn’t make it off of this base.

            Of course, the Red Paladin stood _no_ chance.

            Lotor darted down another hall. The Red Paladin’s feet slid underneath him, but for the most part, he kept up, grunting as he hit the wall and used it to orient himself.

            “Get to the Lions, I’ll meet up with you soon,” Lotor heard the Red Paladin grunt over his own comms. “I promise, alright? This won’t…it won’t be like that again.”

            “How sweet!” Lotor called over his shoulder. “Lover’s reassurances?”

            Even so, Lotor’s mind went through his possible options. He could turn around and fight the Red Paladin. Without anyone to back him up, it should’ve been an easy fight. His rashness would blind him just long enough for Lotor to kill him and make it back to the other side of the hall. Perhaps then he could attempt to try and track down the remaining Paladins and stop them.

            _The Red and Blue Lions are in their hangar_ _…the Black Lion should be aboard Commander Varx’s ship…_

            “Something like that,” the Red Paladin snapped back.

            Lotor turned another corner just as the Red Paladin lunged, both blades swinging. Lotor dodged out of the way of the attack—the Red Paladin went into a roll and shot right back to his feet.

            “Persistent, are you?”

            Lotor turned and stabbed just as the Red Paladin advanced on him. The Red Paladin stifled a cry in the back of his throat as Lotor’s sword sliced deep into his side before he could maneuver away from it. Lotor grinned—one injury would be enough to throw off the Red Paladin’s whole game, especially if his mind were far away, perhaps on someone else—

            A kick to the chest pulled Lotor out of his thoughts as the Red Paladin bore down on him, swinging both swords in large arcs before bringing them both down over his chest. Lotor blocked and rolled, and then took off sprinting after delivering a swift kick to the Red Paladin’s head.

            Could Lotor have turned and killed him right there? _Absolutely._ No question in his mind that it would have been a simple job. But Lotor had better things to do, like get to a hangar and lead the Red Paladin further away from his team, just to be _certain_ that there would be no interruptions, no way for his teammates to bring him back from the brink of death _again_ , something he couldn’t be sure of when his teammates were still on the same base as they were.

            “On it,” the Red Paladin wheezed into his comms, then, and Lotor wondered just what that meant. “Lance—be ready.”

            _Be ready?_

            If Lance was supposedly headed to one of the Lions…

            Lotor ran faster.

            If Lance could fly the Red Lion, and the only other person Lotor knew of who had that ability was the Red Paladin, and the Red Paladin was right _here_ …Lotor had reason to believe that Lance was headed there. And the Red Lion was the fastest of them. Lotor had fast ships, but if Lance caught up—

            _He won_ _’t._

            He might have been an excellent shot, and was becoming a better and better swordsman, but he was hopeless at running, as their numerous encounters indicated, and Lotor couldn’t remember a time when the Red Lion, under the Blue Paladin’s control, managed to evade him or get the jump on him.

            The Red Lion barely did that when the _Red Paladin_ was in control.

            Lotor turned another corner and almost immediately hit a door. He slammed his hand down on the pad that opened it, and watched the door fly up— _someone_ _’s been able to break the lockdown_ —as the Red Paladin caught up.

            The sword missed Lotor’s neck by an inch as Lotor bolted for the waiting ship, his own personal ship. Behind him, he heard the Red Paladin mutter a quiet _are you fucking kidding me_ as he continued his chase. Lotor grinned again, satisfied with the knowledge that the Red Paladin still remembered his time aboard the vessel.

            _This mess started here, and it will end here._

* * *

            Just the _sight_ of Lotor’s ship had pain throbbing through the scar across Keith’s nose, across the scar on his side that Lotor just freshly cut into, across his multiple injuries at the hands of Lotor, and Lotor’s guards, and the prisoner from his arena fight. Keith sucked in a breath and let his bayard deactivate and then dematerialize, while his other hand curled tighter around his Marmora blade, still at full length.

            Lotor was _really_ going to try escaping.

            After boasting for so long about Lance’s capture, and about how he wanted to duel Shiro and Keith, about how he wanted Keith _dead_ …he finally had a fight, and he was running? Keith was _alone,_ for fuck’s sake—Lotor should have taken the bait. By all means, he and Keith should have been back down that hallway, locked in combat.

            _“Escaping…I mean, it’s consistent with what he’s done before, isn’t it? He ran on Eddul, he ran when we rescued you guys before—”_

 _“Actually, I distinctly remember_ us _running away. Lotor sent his guards after us._ _”_

 _“_ Hunk, _you know what I mean. He won_ _’t engage if he doesn’t have to, or thinks he won’t win.”_

            Hunk and Pidge had been debating Lotor’s plot ever since Pidge pointed out that Lotor’s path was leading straight to a hangar. Shiro, Allura, and Lance had been silent, other than their confirmations that they were approaching or entering their Lions. So far, Shiro had just taken to the air, and Allura and Lance were still making their ways toward Red and Blue, fighting waves of soldiers.

            With a gun in Lance’s hand, it wasn’t difficult to get past them.

            “That was two months ago.” Keith kept his voice low, took in a breath, continued on. “There’s a lot to learn in two months.”

            _“Keep your guard up,”_ Shiro interjected, voice hard. _“Don’t engage if things get too dangerous for you. We’ll handle it. If it gets bad, find a way to evacuate. I repeat, if it gets bad,_ evacuate _. Don_ _’t engage.”_

            Keith bit his tongue. Yeah, he trusted the team to get to Lotor if he couldn’t, but they were in their Lions, and he would be _right there—_

            _“Keith.”_

            “Alright, alright.”

            No engaging—not exactly simple, with Keith’s current situation. Lotor was already running for the gangway to his ship, and Keith was still hot on his heels. If he had any hope of hijacking the thing, then there had to be some kind of engagement. Hopefully, Lotor hadn’t called in personnel to help man the thing, and it would just be Lotor standing in his way. If there were officers and soldiers…that was a different story.

            “I’m boarding,” Keith said over the comms.

            _“Lance and I have just arrived to the hangar. We’re getting to the Lions now.”_

            This close—they were _this close_ to finishing this thing. As soon as Lotor took to the air, Keith would be on him, and Red, Blue, and Black would be upon his ship.

            Keith bolted up the gangway and whipped his head around, trying to orient himself, trying to remember the last time he’d been aboard this ship. His clenched and unclenched his free hand, eyes darting about, chest seizing. He remembered boarding this ship from the hangar, and had no recollection of leaving. He’d been conscious, and Shiro had picked him up, and then he’d been out.

            He refused to leave the same way, this time.

            Keith ran off to the left as soon as he heard footsteps, indicating the way Lotor had gone. He heard no one else—he and Lotor must have been the only souls aboard this ship.

            _Good._ No one to get in the way.

            Keith took note of the places he passed, each one threatening to dredge up some other memory. Stumbling upon the bridge was like running into a wall—Keith’s eyes immediately jumped to the exact spot he’d been standing in when Lotor dragged a knife over his face and took pleasure in his screams. It was a few paces to the right of that spot that he found Lotor, fingers flying over some kind of keyboard.

            As soon as Keith cleared his head and took another step forward, the ship shuddered and then lurched violently. Lotor gripped his station, while Keith fell and slid across the floor. He tried and failed to dig his fingers into the metal, and ended up sliding right into the wall, while Lotor kept typing away, pulling up and shutting down various screens. Clearly, he knew what he was doing, and everything moved too quickly for Keith to even _attempt_ a translation.

            _No matter._

            Keith got back to his feet, one hand braced against the wall, and clutched his blade tighter.

            Then he charged.

            Lotor was ready for him. The emperor turned and raised his own blade, Keith’s clanging against it. Lotor shoved, hard, and sent Keith back a few steps.

            “Now you’ve gone and done it,” Lotor snapped, as he and Keith began a series of strikes and parries that ended with Keith being kicked into the wall. His helmet smacked against it, but his head remained protected.

            “What, do you mean sentenced you to death?” Keith shot back, getting back to his feet in time to block another attack. “Give it up, Lotor. You couldn’t win the first time, and you won’t win this time.”

            “No,” Lotor answered. “More like sentenced _Earth_ to death.”

            _Earth_ _’s covered,_ Keith reminded himself, and did his best to keep a straight face, did his best to not lose his grip on his sword, did his best to not lose his footing.

            “Pidge, I need a stat— _agh!_ ”

            He’d been anticipating a swing from Lotor’s sword, and not his _fucking fist._ Lotor punched the bottom of his jaw, in the space where his helmet left his face exposed. Keith let out something between a growl and a shout as he came back at Lotor with his own fist, blade shrinking from a sword to a dagger.

            If Lotor wanted to fight dirty, so be it.

            _“Keith, what’s going on?”_

            Keith ducked underneath a swing from Lotor and tackled him around the waist, driving his blade through one of the softer sections of his armor. Lotor grunted and shoved at Keith’s head, knocking his helmet to the floor. Keith shook his hair out of his face just in time to see Lotor awkwardly swinging his blade at him. He shoved off, into a roll, and got back to his feet, fingers locking around the lip of his visor.

            Instead of putting it back on, he chucked the helmet at Lotor’s head just as he stood up.

            The helmet smacked into Lotor’s nose. Lotor yelped, one hand flying to his face, and Keith caught sight of blood gushing forth. He rushed Lotor in that moment, sweeping his helmet into one arm and driving his blade forward with the other. Lotor dropped his hand and caught his wrist at the last second, and swept a leg underneath him before tossing Keith over his shoulder.

            Keith caught himself before his head could bash the floor, but his helmet fell from his hands. Lotor kicked it halfway across the bridge and then lunged, bringing his blade down for a killing blow. Keith couldn’t transform his blade fast enough—he settled for grabbing Lotor’s blade with both hands, biting back screams as metal tore through flightsuit and flesh.

            “Give it up, _Keith,_ ” Lotor taunted. “You can’t best me. Perhaps if you hadn’t been so _rash_ and run from your team, just as you always do—”

            “Shut up!”

            Keith needed out from underneath here before he could lose a hand, and it seemed Red could hear his thoughts, because at that moment, the ship jolted. Lotor fell off to the side, and Keith kept a tight grip on his blade, wrenching it from his hands before sitting up and throwing it over to the control panels. It struck one panel and sent a shower of sparks raining to the ground, while one of the screens flickered out and died.

            Then the ship shuddered again.

            “What—you _idiot!_ ”

            Lotor’s eyes flashed dangerously, before he got up and scrambled for the computers, while Keith ran for his helmet. He put it on his head just as the ship took another hit. Keith stumbled but kept on his feet this time, while Lotor’s fingers flew over the computers. Keith narrowed his eyes, took up his knife, and threw it.

            Lotor turned at the last second, knife catching him across the cheek instead of in the back of his skull. The knife hit the wall, fell onto the control panels, and then slid down to the floor, where Lotor put a foot over it as he whirled around to face Keith.

            “Do you know what you’ve done?!” Lotor demanded, at the same time Keith’s comms crackled.

            _“Lotor’s ship just went into freefall. Keith, what’s happening?”_

            “Uh, I hit some controls, and…did something,” Keith said. “I-I turned something off.”

            Lotor assumed Keith was speaking to him, and Shiro sighed loudly on the other end of his comms, while Pidge shouted out data points—evidently, she’d been talking for a while, because Keith had no idea what she was going on about.

            “You’re sending us planetside,” Lotor snarled, and picked up Keith’s knife. “You’ve locked me out of my own system because you _broke it_ —”

            “Must be a weak system if a sword can break it,” Keith remarked, taking a step back, eyes darting to the knife.

            Lotor glared, before throwing his knife far down the bridge, toward the gangway. Keith backed toward it, and broke into a sprint when he saw Lotor hefting his own sword. His hands had just locked around the hilt when the gangway started opening, sucking Keith toward it.

            “You know what still works in the event the system goes down?” Lotor shouted above the sudden noise of rushing air. “The exits!”

            In his startled state, Keith couldn’t hold onto the edge of the ship—especially not when his fingers were slick with his own blood. His grip slipped, and suddenly, Keith was no longer in the ship, advancing for the atmosphere of a planet swirling with cloud cover, rapidly being drawn in by its gravity.

            He was out in space.

            Somewhere along the way, his helmet had activated, and covered his whole face, but Keith still spotted a fresh-looking series of cracks right in front of his eyes—they must have been formed when his helmet was thrown around. Through them, he saw nothing but the underbelly of the ship as he drifted away, momentarily stunned. Then he spotted the Lions, and tried activating his jetpack.

            His busted jetpack.

            A hissing noise got his attention, and his eyes drifted to a less-cracked portion of his helmet, where his oxygen levels were displayed. The numbers were rapidly falling, a little orange dot blinking next to him. He supposed he should’ve seen it coming, with a tear in his suit and cracks in his helmet and his jetpack broken.

            “Hey, guys? I uh—I might need some rescue—like _now._ ”

            He was certain the only reason he was still going was the adrenaline still surging through his veins, because the pain in his injuries was spiking, and his oxygen was running lower by the second.

            _“What did you do?”_ Shiro asked, worry slowly seeping into his voice.

            “I may, uh, have engaged? But accidentally evacuated?”

            _“…Where are you right now? And what’s that noise?”_

            “I’m drifting in space,” Keith answered, and couldn’t keep the deadpan away from his voice, “and that hissing is my oxygen running out.”

            Shiro swore on his end of the comms, and it sounded like he was starting to say something else when another voice interrupted.

            _“Hang tight, Keith. I’m comin’.”_

            Keith raised his head, just in time to see the Red Lion breaking formation, while Blue and Black trailed Lotor’s ship and opened fire.

* * *

            Lance nearly had a heart attack when he and Red got close enough to actually _see_ Keith, and see the sorry state of his suit, and Lance wondered how he hadn’t freaking _died_ yet.

            Red’s jaw opened up around Keith and then clamped shut once he was inside. Lance set the controls to autopilot and then broke for the entrance to his Lion, the small area between the cockpit and the gangway. Keith was moving slowly, taking his broken helmet off and setting it on the ground, when he spotted Lance hesitating in the doorway.

            As soon as the tentative smile tugged at Keith’s lips, Lance tackled him in a hug.

            He tried to be mindful of Keith’s injuries—really, he tried—but Keith had just been _drifting in freaking space_ with _low oxygen_ and had just been _dueling Lotor._

            “You quiznaking hothead,” Lance muttered into Keith’s neck as he pulled him close.

            “Hello to you too,” Keith responded.

            “I _told_ you we should’ve attacked as a unit—”

            “But now he’s going to crash—”

            “Not if he _escapes_ —”

            “He’s not gonna—”

            “It’s _Lotor,_ he didn’t die when Shiro ripped his fighter apart with Black’s jaw blades, who’s to say he doesn’t die now?”

            Keith drew back and looked Lance dead in the eyes.

            “If he doesn’t die, then we come at him again,” he said, “and we don’t stop until he’s gone. But killing him wasn’t supposed to be part of this mission.”

            “Wha—”

            “This mission was about getting Red and Blue and _you._ ”

            “But Lotor—”

            “Doesn’t matter.”

            Keith held Lance’s gaze, hands trailing from his back, along the length of his arms, all the way into his hands. Keith laced their fingers together and squeezed, expression softening.

            “Then why’d you go after him?” Lance asked, his voice just as quiet as Keith’s.

            Keith stilled, smile fading from his face. His eyes dropped away from Lance’s and went distant, and his grip tightened just the slightest. Lance tightened his own grip in return, silent as he waited for Keith’s response.

            “I…wasn’t thinking. He hurt the team, and he was _right there._ I shouldn’t have. I should’ve gone with you guys and let him run away,” Keith said.

            He shut his eyes and leaned forward, and Lance pressed their foreheads together.

            “Yeah, doofus, you should’ve come back. How many times has Red saved you from an involuntary spacewalk now?”

            Lance smiled when Keith gave a light laugh. “Too many.”

            The two of them fell back into easy silence. When Lance stood up a minute or so later, wordlessly, Keith followed suit, his right hand still intertwined with Lance’s left. Keith used his free hand to pick up the knife he’d left on the ground, sheath it, and then scoop up his helmet and tuck it under his arm, before he and Lance made their way back into the cockpit. Lance gestured for Keith to take the pilot’s chair, but Keith shook his head and let Lance take it, and opted to stand behind him instead.

            “Team, what’s our status?” Lance asked through Red’s comm system.

            Out the window, Keith and Lance could see Lotor’s ship still being drawn in by the planet’s gravity, while Blue and Black stalled, watching, waiting.

            _“We’ve done what damage we could,”_ Shiro answered. _“I think for now we let gravity do the rest of the work, and monitor activity in this area for the next few days. As for the Milky Way—Pidge, how are things looking?”_

            _“Matt blew through the last of the ships that made it to Saturn, and he’s dispatching a team for patrol. He said transmissions from Iverson indicated that things were all clear as far as Earth could tell,”_ Pidge answered. _“No sign of Lotor?”_

            _“Nothing’s come out of his ship after Keith,”_ Allura said.

 _“Tiva’s in a pod, if anyone cares,”_ Hunk interjected.

            _“She’ll be good as new in a couple of quintants! Lucky you got to her when you did,”_ Coran added.

            “Yeah, speaking of pods—” Lance stole a glance at Keith, and Keith’s eyebrows arced, “—I think Keith is gonna need one. And Shiro. Pidge, Hunk, if you two were in an _explosion_ —”

            _“Yeah, yeah, we can fuss over each other when we’re all in one place again,”_ Pidge said. _“I’ll see you guys soon.”_

            _“Roger_ that _,_ _”_ Shiro said. _“I need about five hundred naps.”_

            Laughter broke out across the comm system, while Blue, Black, and Red started changing direction—away from Lotor’s ship, toward where the castle was waiting, closer to Central Command.

            Lance’s eyes grew misty the closer they drew to the white ship, gleaming against the dark sky.

            After two long months of suffering, he was finally coming home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think,,, i'm almost positive there's just one more chapter and the epilogue left
> 
> WE'RE ALMOST THERE
> 
> THIS SERIES STARTED JUNE 25TH AND IT'S MAY 28TH AND I REFUSE TO MAKE IT TO JUNE 25TH, THIS BITCH IS GONNA BE WRAPPED BEFORE SEASON 6 I PROMISE
> 
> SEE YA IN THE NEXT ONE...HOPEFULLY SHORTER ONE...THIS BITCH WAS 11.5K HOLY SHIT BYE


	35. The One in Which There's a Bonding Moment...or Several

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Lance confront their inner demons in an effort to reconnect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did y'all really think, after 34 chapters of separation and suffering, i wouldn't give u a chapter dedicated to klance
> 
> also this isn't the last chapter
> 
> it was supposed to be  
> a) this length, with all of the content of the next chapter  
> b) half this length (why do i write so much wfetgwfgrf) with only this chapter's content
> 
> oh whale
> 
> **trigger warnings for multiple bouts of crying and breakdowns, self-hatred and self-esteem issues, and recaps of a bunch of chapters**

Chapter 35

            By the time Lance pulled Red into his hangar in the Castle of Lions, silent tears were streaming down his face. Even when Red lowered his jaw and powered down around him, Lance remained in his seat, fingers tightly wrapped around the levers at his sides. His knuckles had gone white, the rest of his posture rigid.

            The euphoria and adrenaline high of rescuing Keith, of being back in a Lion’s cockpit, of being back with the team and hearing their laughter for the first time in forever, had finally worn off and left Lance hollow, with nothing but his darkest thoughts to bleed into the gaps. He hadn’t been back in the castle for a long time, and that was with a lot less blood on his hands, with less nights and dark corners he regretted—he was _cleaner_ before, every bit the Paladin he was supposed to be.

            Paladins didn’t destroy planets or murder allies in front of a screaming crowd.

            Paladins didn’t kiss the emperor trying to conquer the universe, and then marry him in a ceremony that got broadcast for everyone to see.

            _Married—holy fucking quiznak, I_ _’m still married to him—if he dies, then do I—? I can’t run a whole_ empire _—_

“Hey.”

            Lance snapped back to reality; Keith was gently pulling one hand away from a lever, and then squatting down in front of him, until the two of them were eye level with each other. He still held onto the hand he’d pried away from Red’s controls—he clasped it between both of his, warm and solid and grounding. The smile he gave Lance was weak, and didn’t quite reach his eyes.

            “I know, it’s…gonna be something. But it’ll be okay. I’m right here with you.”

            _You don_ _’t know,_ Lance wanted to say. _You_ _’ve seen the broadcasts, but you haven’t seen everything._

            Lance met his gaze. Keith was blurry in front of him, but even through his tears, Lance could make out Keith’s smile fading, his own eyes turning glassy as he rose to full height, and pulled Lance up with him. As soon as Lance was on two feet, Keith let go of his hand, only to throw his arms around him and bury his face in Lance’s neck. Lance returned the hug tightly, arms around Keith’s back, clinging on for dear life.

            “Don’t tell the others,” Keith murmured, voice muffled, “but I called dibs on first hug while they weren’t looking.”

            That one got a laugh out of Lance, even as more tears sprang forward.

            “We already hugged,” Lance replied, and sniffled.

            “Dibs on the first two, then.”

            “Pretty sure this is our third.”

            Their third, and they held onto each other like it would be their last. Lance didn’t care that Keith was streaked with blood, and Keith didn’t care that just a little while ago, Lance had been under the orders to kill him. It made no difference that Keith’s jaw was bruised and hands were sliced, the same way it didn’t matter that Lance shook so hard his legs were close to buckling underneath him.

            They had each other again, and it was almost enough to chase away the thoughts running through Lance’s mind, the same thoughts that only got louder when Keith finally drew back with a resigned sigh. Lance couldn’t help the way his stomach churned and his breaths came a little bit sharper, the way his muscles tightened he watched Keith with a hawk’s eye, searching for the slightest shift in attitude, the tiniest change in the look in his eyes.

            “The others are probably waiting for us,” Keith said. “C’mon.”

            He dropped his arms away from where they’d been wrapped loosely around Lance’s neck, while Lance released his grip on Keith. Keith started for the exit first, but paused at the top of the gangway, waiting for Lance to join him. Lance moved stiffly, each step smaller and more hesitant than the last.

            “Lance,” Keith said, and Lance stopped, raised his head. Keith wore that wistful smile again, the one that made Lance’s heart clench at just how _phony_ it was. “It’s gonna be okay.”

            Did Keith believe himself?

            _Stop that. Let it be. You_ _’re home now—no one here is out to get you. You’re_ safe, _don_ _’t you get it?_

            Lance shook his head, like it might clear up his mind as he took those last few steps, until he was at Keith’s side. When Keith nudged Lance’s knuckles with his own, Lance took his hand. Keith’s grip was steady, tight, and they descended the gangway together, shouts going up almost immediately.

            “Lance!”

            “Lance! Buddy, you’re back!”

            Two blurs, green and yellow, launched themselves at Lance and Keith, flinging arms around Lance’s frame. Lance stumbled, but Keith was there to keep him upright just before Hunk and Pidge squeezed the life out of him. Lance could hear Keith laughing behind him, could hear other footsteps running as several more pairs of arms joined in his hug.

            “Glad to have you back, Lance.”

            “We’ve missed you, Lance.”

            “Lance, my boy! Welcome home!”

            The voices around him kept going, warring for attention as they gushed about how much they missed him, and how glad they were that he was home now, _safe now,_ and how much catching up they had to do. The pressure behind Lance’s eyes gave way to fresh tears—within seconds, Hunk had joined him, and then Pidge, and soon enough, the whole team was one giant blob of limbs and sobs. Nobody dared to let go until most of it had subsided, until Lance was the last one still going, the pent-up emotions of two months flowing through the broken dam.

            As soon as everyone had taken a step back—still in a tight circle around him, hands hovering, ready to support him at a moment’s notice—Keith slipped back in. Lance collapsed into his arms automatically, stifling his sobs by burying his face in Keith’s shoulder.

            “It’s alright, dude,” Hunk said, reaching out a hand to pat Lance’s back. “Let it _aaaaaaall_ out.”

            “Perhaps let it all out on the way to the med bay?” Coran suggested, raising a finger, smiling hopefully, awkwardly. “It seems all of you need to be checked out. The mission you pulled off…stunning, but not without a few injuries, I see.”

            At first, no one responded, gazes shifting between each other before every eye fell on Lance, shaking in Keith’s arms, muffled cries still escaping every so often. Keith raised his eyebrows at the group, silently daring them to try and tell Lance to get it together. But then Lance sniffled, and the cries stopped abruptly.

            “Good— _guh,_ yeah,” Lance muttered, drawing away from Keith, just enough to speak. “Good idea, Coran.”

            He dragged a sleeve over his face, frowning down at it immediately after.

            “I need out of this outfit, anyway.”

* * *

            It was decided, by the time the team reached the med bay, that each of them would be taking a pod. Coran busied himself reading the estimated lengths of their stays while the others each changed out of their armor and flightsuits, and Lance shucked off the prisoner’s uniform, kicking the garb away from himself with a grimace.

            Allura was set to last the shortest; of all of them, she sustained the least physical injuries. Her aching head and depleted powers were another story—a quick stay in the pod should’ve had her good as new in no time. Pidge and Hunk would be the next shortest, as their armor had protected them from being more violently injured in the explosion that destroyed half of Varx’s ship.

            When Coran explained it, they each stole a glance at Tiva’s battered frame, motionless beyond the seafoam glass, still bruised and littered in cuts and scrapes and burns. The price she had to pay for helping them pull off their mission.

            Pidge couldn’t help the twinge of guilt that ran through her as she entered her own pod.

            Keith would be the next to come out. He would’ve probably beaten Pidge and Hunk, if not for the deep cut to his side, and the fact that he’d taken a spacewalk with a busted helmet and torn suit.

            The next up would be Shiro. A quick scan of his body turned up internal damage that would need a little more time to heal, especially given the decidedly shoddy— _“You melted your suit into your skin! What were you thinking?” “Uh, I would’ve bled out if I didn’t?”_ —job he’d done with cauterizing his injury.

            Lance would be the last.

            “We don’t know exactly what was in that drug yet,” Coran explained, while Lance sat on a table next to the computer system that the advisor was currently working at. “I’ve been able to pull up some ingredients, but not all of them. The longer you’re in the pod, the more we can draw whatever’s left out of you, and the better data we have to analyze. Still, it shouldn’t be more than a couple of quintants.”

            Lance nodded absently, eyes drifting to Keith, who stood nearby, watching with crossed arms and tight lips. He refused to get into a pod until he got Lance’s prognosis, and still refused now, even with this knowledge in his head. He wouldn’t go into one until he was certain Lance was okay.

            “How did you say you pulled him out of that drug haze again, Keith? You and Allura?” Coran asked without looking up.

            “Yeah,” Keith said. “Red and Blue couldn’t get into his mindscape on their own. It took all four of us, and even then, it took effort. When I was there…I could _feel_ the quintessence there. It was wrong. Whatever kind of quintessence Lotor put in that drug must have been from…from Ven. Or from Haggar’s experiments. It…”

            Keith trailed off. Glanced down at his fingers. Clenched a fist until the tightening in his chest eased up.

            “Stuff happened, on Ven.” Keith’s voice was quieter this time, and he stepped closer to Lance and Coran—close enough for his side to bump into Lance’s knees, as his legs dangled over the side of the table. “I…there was something I felt in the lab that I felt again in the mindscape. It had to have been the quintessence.”

            “Noted,” Coran replied, and then righted himself, stroked his mustache. “Well, alrighty then! Lance, time to get you into a pod, and Keith, time to stop being stubborn as a hungry Gliktanian Muon!”

            “Gliktanian Muon?” Lance asked, as he pushed off of the table and landed on two feet.

            “One of the most ferocious beasts on the planet Gliktan!” Coran said. “I’ve had my run-ins with them, you know. And I’ll make sure to tell you all about it when you’ve been healed up. Go on, now.”

            Coran opened his mouth like he was going to say more, and then forced a smile to his face and closed it, gesturing Lance and Keith toward two empty pods. They strode toward Lance’s first, pausing right in front of it.

            “I’ll be right here when you come out,” Keith promised. “I’m not going anywhere. Never again.”

            Lance stilled. He took in the sight of Keith: hair disheveled from battle, white pod suit already stained with blood where his unhealed cut was, bruise prominent on his jaw, various other scars and cuts standing out against pale skin that spoke to sleepless nights and not enough care being taken.

            In the back of his mind, he could recall the Keith from his nightmares. The Keith from Lotor’s training deck. The blade buried in his stomach while the sim gaped at him in betrayed disbelief.

            Then he remembered everything he had yet to tell Keith, and imagined the same expression coming over his face now: anger, betrayal, horror…all directed at him.

            _Don_ _’t be so sure of that,_ Lance almost said.

            But then something else flashed back to him: the fierce determination that had been on Keith’s face during that final transmission, the brutality with which he’d gone at Lotor for daring to hurt him…

            “Okay.” Lance couldn’t bring his voice to be anything above a whisper.

            He took Keith’s face in his hands, gently. Keith leaned into his touch, his own hands steady on Lance’s waist. Their lips pressed together, softly, slowly, before Lance pulled away. He looked at Keith for a heartbeat afterward, and then stepped into the pod. Keith watched him, until the pod sealed, and left Lance frozen.

            “So,” Coran said, when Keith still hadn’t moved after a full two minutes of staring. Keith yelped, startled, and spun on his heel to face the advisor.

            Coran was smiling.

            “You’ve figured it out, then?” Coran asked.

            For a moment, Keith held his breath, brain fumbling to understand. But then things clicked into place, and Keith let the breath go, relaxed his muscles. Ran a hand through his hair. Turned and got another glimpse at Lance, and a face at peace. At _rest_.

            “Yeah,” Keith said, nodding. “Yeah, I have. It’s…something I can’t just go on ignoring or denying. Not when…” He loosed another breath. “Not when he was almost taken from me for good.”

            “Have you told him?” Coran pressed.

            Keith felt the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth and pursed his lips, before muttering a quiet, “Yeah. He…he feels the same way.”

            Coran’s smiled deepened. “I’m glad to hear it. Now, you can’t greet him when he comes out of his pod if you never get healed in time. In you go!”

            He clapped Keith on the back and ushered him toward his own pod. When Keith got in, he gave Coran one last nod and a tight smile. Then the pod sealed, and a blast of cold air hit Keith, followed by darkness collapsing on top of him.

* * *

            True to the predictions, Keith emerged from the pod almost a day later, stumbling out into Allura’s arms. Hunk and Pidge were already on standby with a blanket for him, a blanket Hunk draped around his shivering form. Keith pulled it tighter on his shoulders as he stepped away from the pod.

            “What did I miss?” Keith asked, as Hunk broke away from the group and darted over to the now-cleared table where Lance had been examined the last Keith had seen him, and returned a few seconds later with a steaming cup. He handed it off, and Keith sniffed it. When it didn’t come up smelling like hot nunvil, he deemed it safe to consume and took a tiny sip, still waiting on the responses of the others.

            “We’re calling in the Voltron Alliance again,” Allura said slowly, and Keith lowered the cup from his mouth, eyes widening fractionally.

            “Why?”

            Allura shot looks at Pidge and Hunk—evidently, she’d already gone over this with the both of them—and cleared her throat. Let her gaze wander up to the ceiling, and then back to Keith.

            “It’s in our best interests as an alliance to go over that mission, especially considering so many members of the alliance were actively involved, and seeing as…we…”

            “We won on the Milky Way side of things,” Pidge jumped in quietly, “but we still lost a number of fighters. Most of them were just people sent in by the diplomats who were here, but…it was still a lot. It’s not a hollow victory, but…it’s still not the greatest we could’ve pulled off. We…we almost lost Matt.”

            Keith turned around, eyes scanning over the occupied pods in the room, frown deepening. Tiva, Shiro, and Lance were still the only occupants of these pods.

            “He doesn’t need a pod,” Pidge went on explaining, following Keith’s line of sight. “They’re not even back yet, but he talked to us after the fight. He was talking to Tiva when they took a bad hit, but that was right before Varx’s ship exploded. After that, they needed to jump ship. One of the members of his rebel group rescued his crew, and they all made it out alive, but…close call. The Galra were merciless.”

            Keith nodded, and dropped his head again, eyes shifting back down to his cup of orangish liquid.

            “There _is_ another reason we’re calling this meeting,” Allura said, after a moment of silence. She sucked in a breath, while Keith’s hands curled tighter around the cup. “Pidge has been scanning Odonae, which is the planet we’re orbiting. Her scans pulled up evidence that Lotor’s ship crashed…and then she found Lotor’s energy signature. He’s been on the move, likely scavenging for resources. He…he survived the crash, Keith.”

            It didn’t surprise Keith.

            “He’s survived a lot of things he shouldn’t have,” he murmured.

            He missed the looks Hunk, Pidge, and Allura exchanged behind him and over his shoulder as he took another small sip of the drink in his hands.

            “How long until the meeting?” Keith asked.

            Again, he didn’t see the way Allura’s shoulders relaxed slightly, tentatively as Keith voiced the question.

            “A few quintants, unfortunately,” Allura answered. “We’re waiting until everyone arrives—we don’t want to leave anyone out of the loop. As it will take a few days, and we’ve promised to take no action against Lotor until the Alliance has decided what to do with him from here on out…we’ve sent in patrols to monitor the planet. Pidge has been keeping up, but a few fighters who were with us at Central Command volunteered to keep a closer eye on things.”

            Keith nodded again, took another sip. Glanced at the pods. Let his gaze fall back down to his cup as he shuffled forward, toward the door that led out to the rest of the castle.

            “I’ll be back,” was all he said, and Pidge, Hunk, and Allura watched him go.

            Keith felt their eyes on his back up until the door closed between them, and he let go of the slight hunch in his shoulders, allowed the neutral mask to slide off of his face as he considered everything he’d been told, and realized that he’d yet again be facing the same diplomats who’d deemed Lance a lost cause. This time, with Lance.

            The same person they’d railed against.

            He would’ve had to have been a fool to have ignored the apprehension with which Lance had deboarded Red, or the carefully-concealed terror that he’d appraised Keith with, moments before he stepped into the pod—a look that made Keith’s own heart race, nerves prickling beneath his skin. It had just been _him,_ and maybe Lance wasn’t aware of the scope of Keith’s experiences yet, but he _had_ to have known that Keith understood.

            Keith could hardly stomach the thought of Lance confronting all of those diplomats, taking each and every accusation like a punch to the gut. He couldn’t even say for sure how Lance would react—whether he’d defend himself, or just _take it,_ and let himself drown in their words.

            _The team won_ _’t let it happen._

            Keith found himself at his door in practically no time, anger rising as he opened it up, stepped into his room, and set his cup of whatever the hell he’d been given down on the end of his bed. The door fell shut behind him, giving him his privacy as he stripped the suit from the cryopods and headed for his shower. Sure, he’d been healed, but there was blood still stuck to the pod suit, still stained brown against his pale skin.

            His shower was short. Keith wasn’t keen on wasting time under the water when there were things to be done, still people in the pods he had to wait for. He didn’t bother running a brush through his soaked strands, rivulets of water running down his face and neck as he stepped out of the bathroom and headed for the small closet with his clothes. He dressed quickly, water dripping onto his shirt, near the collar.

            On his way out of the room, he swiped Lance’s jacket, which had been hanging on a hook next to the door since just before the team had departed for the Central Command mission. He told himself that it was just a favor he was doing for Lance; whenever he got out of his pod, he’d be cold, and Keith didn’t know where the extra blankets were to grab one for him in the first place. Besides—the jacket was a lot warmer than any blanket.

            Lance would surely appreciate this.

* * *

            The last time Lance tumbled out of a cryopod, Keith couldn’t even bare to look him in the eyes, much less _touch him_ , after the attacks on the training deck, after the hate that had spewed from his mouth. So there was no way, Lance concluded, that Keith could have known of all the atrocities he’d committed in his time running around as Jeremy, because if Keith knew the full extent of everything, there would have been no way he would’ve been the lone soul in the med bay, arms outstretched and ready, catching Lance as he stumbled into them.

            “Hey, Lance,” Keith murmured. “How you feelin’?”

            “Freezing,” Lance answered, automatically. Keith nodded, helping Lance until he was upright on two feet, and then let him go.

            Lance’s automatic reaction was to suspect that maybe his hunch was _wrong_ , maybe Keith _did_ know about everything, and maybe him helping was nothing more than a courtesy, to ease Lance into bad news, to ease Lance into a conversation that would end with Keith claiming that it was all too much, their confessions in that closet had been nothing more than words fueled by adrenaline and the people they’d been two months ago—

            “Here,” Keith said, and Lance’s mind-train screeched to a halt, wheels grinding against tracks.

            He looked at Keith, wide-eyed, and realized that Keith’s arms were suddenly bare. Then he realized that his arms hadn’t been bare a second ago because he’d been _wearing his jacket._

            “Is this…?” Lance asked incredulously, tentatively taking it from Keith’s grasp and pulling it on over the white pod suit, warmth immediately bleeding into him.

            Keith only hesitated for a second before steeling his gaze and nodding firmly. “Yeah. Sorry I didn’t ask before. I’ve had it the last few days.”

            “No, no, it’s fine,” Lance said. “I’m just…”

            _Paranoid,_ his mind filled in the blanks.

            He hadn’t noticed that he was shrinking in on himself, drawing limbs closer to his center, shoulders hunching, until Keith reached for his hand and took it and held tight, lacing their fingers together and squeezing so hard that his knuckles were probably turning white underneath his gloves.

            “What happened while I was out?” Lance changed the subject. He glanced over his shoulder at the other pods, and found them all empty, which meant if the team was waiting to do something, they were waiting on _him,_ _again,_ and were probably getting impatient over precious time wasted—

            “Not much,” Keith answered. “We…maybe I should let you get changed first, actually. Shower, y’know? Get comfortable?”

            “That last part might be a little difficult.”

            Lance said it so quietly that he was certain Keith missed it, until Keith nodded again, and turned to fully face him. He took his other hand, eyes bright with determination. Lance made himself meet Keith’s gaze,

            “I get it. I _promise_ , Lance, I _get it._ There’s…what I told you, in that transmission? I meant it. No matter what you’ve done, we’re—fuck it, _I_ _’m_ not going anywhere. You went through _hell_ and you kept fighting to _survive._ And you did. How am I supposed to fault you for that? How am I supposed to get mad because of what Lotor put you through?”

            _Not everything,_ the little nuisance in Lance’s head reminded him cheekily. _He doesn_ _’t know everything._

            “ _Lance_ ,” Keith said, more insistently.

            His eyes must have clouded, or something. Lance blinked; Keith’s expression was one of urgency. No phony smile, no attempt to get him to grin back. Keith’s eyes bored into his, and maybe it was a trick of the light, but then again, maybe it wasn’t. Keith had no reason to be on the verge of tears.

            “I need to shower,” Lance whispered, and finally averted his eyes to the floor.

            He extricated himself from Keith’s grasp, shame burning his face red. He didn’t dare turn around and look at Keith, at the hurt in _his_ face.

            He didn’t expect Keith to call after him.

            “I’ll be in my room whenever you’re ready to talk.”

            For someone Lance suspected to be ready to cry at any second, Keith’s voice was surprisingly steady. Still, Lance didn’t risk looking back, nor did he respond. He welcomed the door opening in front of him, and then falling shut once he was out in the hallway, officially separating him from Keith. Better yet, the halls were empty.

            No one saw the tears start as he bolted for his room.

* * *

            If anyone asked, Keith would’ve said _no,_ he wasn’t keeping track of the time since Lance had left the med bay, and left Keith alone, surrounded by empty pods. He wasn’t counting off time as he walked back to his room, decidedly chillier than when he’d come to the med bay. He didn’t think about how long he waited, lying on his back on his bed, staring up at the metal above him, while the castle made the shift into its night cycle.

            Truthfully, Keith counted off every last second of the hour and twenty-eight minutes that elapsed before he heard footsteps in the hallway outside. They stopped just outside of his door, and then started walking away. Keith leapt off of his bed and made it all the way to his door, ready to open it, when he stopped short.

            _He doesn_ _’t want to talk right now. You have to leave him alone._

            Lance had done the same for him before, hadn’t he?

            _He_ _’s probably just going to sleep._

            It _was_ the castle’s night cycle, after all, and not even a stay in the pods could give someone the rest they needed after a high-stakes, high-stress mission like the one they’d just come back from.

            Slowly, painstakingly, Keith made it back to his bed and peeled back the covers. He slipped underneath them, crunched his pillow beneath his arm. Listened hard for any other sounds in the hallway before finally giving up and calling it a night. If Lance wasn’t here by now, Keith doubted he’d come to him tonight.

            _Go to bed. You can deal with this in the morning._

            Hopefully, they’d have another day or two before all of the diplomats returned to the castle, a day or two Keith could use to find out what, exactly, was keeping Lance from talking to him. Red wouldn’t say—reaching out did nothing. The Lion swore himself to secrecy.

            _Bedtime, Kogane._

            Keith _hmphed_ to himself and rolled over, onto his side, back to the door. He drew the covers up to his chin, and try as he might’ve, he couldn’t fall asleep. Instead, he spent the next two hours staring at the wall, eyes more than adjusted to the dark by the time he heard footsteps coming down the hall again.

            Keith sat up and kicked off his covers, and then swung his legs over the side of the bed. He padded to the door, feet bare against the cool metal of the floors, and opened it up. He poked his head into the hallway, heart clenching when he saw Lance, shivering, pacing back and forth just a few feet down the hall from Keith’s room.

            Lance’s head snapped up at the sound of the door opening. He met gazes with Keith, eyes wide, and drew back, drew into himself.

            It was the look of a skittish animal, caged and cornered.

            Keith knew the feeling.

            “Lance,” he spoke quietly, “come here. C’mon.”

            He stepped just outside of the door and gestured for Lance to step into his room. Lance hesitated, eyes jumping from Keith to his outstretched arm to the door and back, and then shook his head, even as he took a step forward.

            “No, no—I…I can’t sleep, and I-I can’t…there’s…”

            Keith let his arm drop to the side as Lance approached. He didn’t interrupt as Lance tried to gather himself—rubbing his arm, studying the floor like it was the most fascinating thing in the world, dragging a hand across his face, scrubbing at his eyes until they were drier.

            Finally, Lance took a breath, entire frame drooping. He raised his head to look at Keith.

            “I need to show you something.”

            His words were steadier and softer this time. He took another step forward and reached his hand out, just the slightest. Keith wrapped his around it without hesitation, and fell into step as Lance began to pull him away from the door, toward another section of the castle. It only took a minute for Keith to register the path as the way back to Red’s hangar.

            “Where are we going?” Keith asked.

            Lance looked over both shoulders, scanned the area around them, and then dropped his voice. “It’s something personal, and…we need time and space to do it. I don’t want to be interrupted, and…this is something…this is something I’m trusting you with. I…I’m sorry. For earlier.”

            “It’s alright.”

            They said nothing more until they reached Red’s hangar. Red’s form still managed to gleam in the dark, and if Keith and Lance stared closely enough, they could almost make out a faint red glow around the Lion.

            “So what are we here for?” Keith asked again, as they let go of each other. Lance paced a few steps in front of Keith and rubbed the back of his neck.

            “You don’t know everything I did back at Central Command.”

            _Oh._

            Keith bit his lip, and crossed his arms to steal what bit of warmth he could.

            “I wanted to show you. Telling it…something’s lost, when I tell it, and I don’t know if I’d even be able to get through it, and the headsets…the headsets won’t do it justice either. I need to _show_ you, and to do that, we need Red,” Lance went on explaining, and his voice began shaking halfway through his explanation. “I don’t want to hide anything from you. You—you of all people deserve the story, in full.”

            “So you want to go to your mindscape,” Keith concluded gently.

            Lance looked up and nodded, eyes glistening. He strode forward, stopping in front of Keith, and met gazes with him.

            “Only if you trust me enough for this.”

            “I do,” Keith said. “If you’re gonna do this…then it’s only fair if we go to mine after, because there are things _I_ said and did that…I hated. I’m…there was a lot that happened, Lance. Not just before I was rescued, but…after, too.”

            Lance nodded. “Alright.”

            He sat down on the floor, cross-legged, and Keith followed suit. They pressed their knees together as Lance lifted his hands to about shoulder height, palms out. Keith took them and laced their fingers together. They each shut their eyes and reached out for their connections to Red, while Keith squeezed Lance’s hands.

            _I_ _’m with you,_ Keith thought, and seconds later, Lance’s voice echoed around his head: _I_ _’m with you, too._

            And then, moments after, the world tipped out from beneath Keith, and dumped him out in the same black space he’d woken up in the day Allura talked to him while he was in the pod. There was the same red tinge, but when Keith looked around, at the shifting shadow, the blurry bubbles of memory didn’t match anything he’d experienced—not the sterile lab on Ven, not the prison cell on Ruovi, not the woods from Ven, not the mountaintop.

            Everything was cast in some shade of purple.

            “Lance?” Keith called out, and squinted as the shadows moved, blowing away from a spot that revealed Lance, crouched low to the ground, surrounded by memory bubbles. He lifted his head slightly at the sound of Keith’s voice, and then rose to full height. He walked over carefully, memory bubbles trailing him, spinning around him.

            “Are you ready?” Lance asked, and gestured to the bubbles.

            “I don’t think I’m the one you should be asking,” Keith said, and reached for his hand again. “Are _you_ ready?”

            “As I’ll ever be, I guess,” Lance answered.

            He stepped closer to Keith, until they were side-by-side, and pointed fingers at each memory, until they were lined up in a row in front of them. Then he pointed to the first one, and the memory began.

            Each one went in chronological order, Lance’s grip on Keith’s hand becoming more crushing with every passing bubble: waking up on Lotor’s ship in a prison cell and faking his amnesia; Lotor coming into his room that first night; his first few breakdowns and panic attacks, and Keith’s heart tore to pieces.

            Every memory was accompanied by Lance’s inner thoughts, and not just what was happening in the room. Multiple memories played that featured an endless streak of apologies, and it was about that time that Lance turned away from the bubbles in favor of burying his face in Keith’s shoulder. Keith held him tight, still watching each one play out.

            _“Please let me out of here. I can’t stay here by myself anymore, I need something to do, I need to find some way to contact the team, I need to find out where Keith is, I need Keith, I miss him, I need to know if he’s okay, let me out of this prison.”_

            Lance inhaled sharply, sniffled, and then began shaking.

            “It’s alright, it’s alright,” Keith whispered, rubbing Lance’s back, while his own anger surged. “I’m here. I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

            Sitting would have been easier. Keith slowly started crouching down, and Lance moved with him, until Keith was sitting with his legs out in front of him, Lance collapsed on top of him.

            Keith’s anger only increased as the next memory played, of Lotor and Lance’s first “date” on the observation deck, while Lance’s fingers curled tighter in the fabric of Keith’s shirt, and his sobs came harder.

            _“I’m sorry Keith I’m so sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry—”_

            “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Lance whimpered then, and Keith’s chest seized. He held tighter to Lance, pressed his face against the top of Lance’s head.

            “Shh, shhh. It’s okay. You’re okay,” Keith whispered, and brought a hand up to smooth down Lance’s hair. “You’re safe now. I promise.”

            Safe now, but not then. The next few memories played, including one in which Lotor’s officers attacked Lance in the middle of one of their meetings, one which set Keith’s blood boiling—especially when Lance’s selfless ass had the audacity to think back to the day he got captured, and think about Keith, in the middle of a _freaking attempt on his life._

            “N-No…not this…”

            Lance uttered the words as the memory drew closer to its end, as Lotor rescued him from the wrath of his officers, as he brought back up the marriage topic, and Lance bargained with—

            _“The corpse of the Red Paladin.”_

            Keith didn’t stiffen, didn’t still. He focused on running his fingers through Lance’s hair, focused on the way Lance let out a loud sob then, and shuddered harder.

            “I-I-I wanted t-to s-save you—”

            “Shhh, it’s okay,” Keith murmured. “It’s okay. I know.”

            He could see the logic in Lance’s plan: have Keith brought to Central Command, place him in Lance’s hands, because Lotor didn’t know that Lance had all of his memories. Lotor didn’t know what Lance was truly up to. Coming to Central Command and being given over to him would have been the best case—better than being attacked by everyone else, nonstop.

            Even in hell, Lance was watching his back.

            Keith’s own eyes burned as the memories continued—the transmission, when he’d been aboard the prison ship; his breakdown afterward, as he caved into Lotor’s affections; the attack by Lotor’s officers in the dead of night, an attack that ended with Lance succumbing to his pain and passing out.

            And then, eventually, the training deck.

            It was supposed to be Central Command’s training deck, Keith knew that much, but the one in Lance’s memory looked eerily like the one in the castle.

            “No, no, no, no…please, no…”

            “Lance—hey, Lance, it’s…”

            _“Why are you running? Stand your ground! Put up a real fight!”_

            Keith trailed off as his own voice filled up Lance’s mindscape. In the memory, Keith could plainly see a training bot, programmed to look exactly like him. This training bot wasn’t meant to confuse Lance’s affections, wasn’t meant for Lance to misinterpret as real and come running for. Lance was running _away_ , as the bot attacked.

            Up until the bot had said those words.

            Keith watched the fight play out, blood turning cold in his veins as Lance switched from defense to offense, attacking without mercy, the same manner in which the bot attacked him. In Keith’s arms, present Lance continued sobbing, muttering apologies.

            “I didn’t want to—”

            _“_ You’re _the reason for all of this! If you—if you hadn_ _’t—ugh!_ Fuck you and everything you’ve done to me! _”_

            Lance’s sobs were almost as loud as the sound from his memory, echoing around the mindscape. Keith held onto him tighter, as he grew more and more numb, watching as the simulation version of himself attacked Lance, blade poised to skewer him in the neck.

            That was the moment when the sim froze, arms nearly going slack, jaw falling open as his eyes came to rest on Lance, breathing hard, tears shining in the corners of his eyes. Keith studied the scene, heart nearly stopping when he saw the blade embedded in the simulation’s gut, all the way up to the hilt.

            _“Your fault,”_ Lance hissed. _“This. All of this. If you’d just fucking stayed away, none of this would’ve happened!”_

            “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I-I didn’t…”

            Keith wasn’t even aware he was crying, too, until the first tears slid down his face as he watched the sim fade away, and memory-Lance whispered an _I_ _’m sorry_ before catching sight of Lotor, smiling on the observation deck, and then throwing up.

            “It’s okay,” Keith croaked in what he hoped was a reassuring tone, because he could hardly feel his body at this point, and the only thing keeping him tethered to Lance’s mindscape was Lance himself. A reminder that this was real, that he wasn’t making all of this up.

            Despite the two of them zoning in and out, the memories kept going.

            More days and nights in Central Command, dealing with the aftermath of what he’d done on the training deck, the words he’d said, up until the night he woke up with his chest on fire. If Keith’s heart was in pieces before, then this obliterated it: Lance, begging Red to answer him and tell him this wasn’t real, a stream of apologies not unlike the ones he was whimpering now, the guilt that ate him alive as he imagined far too many different scenarios, all with Keith’s suffering at the center.

            Lance stopped speaking, started choking on his words until his cries stole them away. He tried to muffle them, pressing his face into Keith’s shirt, and Keith forced his hands to work again as he clutched Lance tighter.

            “Let it out, Lance.” Keith’s voice came out strained as he shoved his own sobs down.

            The next memories: more time spent in his room, not unlike the first memories of Central Command; Lotor visiting, explaining that Lance would be the one to execute the Marmorite, Mirak, in the arena. Another memory, of vigorous training, releasing all of the pent-up frustration he could. Returning to his room to shower.

            Joining Lotor back on the observation deck.

            “We’re eighteen,” Keith choked out, as Lance came to the same conclusion, but the memory kept moving.

            Somewhere along the line, as Keith discovered Lance’s one drunken incident in his Garrison days, Lance had calmed down slightly, sobs mild, becoming less and less frequent, until they were reduced to nothing but sniffles. He still refused to lift his head and look at the memory, but he settled more firmly against Keith, clutched him tighter.

            _“I had to kill so many people...Galra soldiers. People on my side. People I was supposed to_ protect _. That was the whole point of infiltrating the Paladins, wasn_ _’t it? To protect the Empire?”_

            “I hurt so many people,” Lance’s voice was a hoarse whisper, as he turned his head, cheek settling on Keith’s shoulder. “I made so many _stupid_ decisions—”

            _“I can’t go into that arena tomorrow. The Red Paladin—he—he made me kill. He wouldn’t let me out of it, he—my hands are_ so dirty _—_ _”_

            “It wasn’t you,” Lance added, and squeezed his eyes shut, more tears slipping down his face. “It wasn’t you, Keith—”

            “I know, I know. It’s okay.”

            _Fuck._ Both of their voices were shaking. Keith was supposed to be the strong one in this instance—Lance needed him to lean on, now more than ever, and Keith couldn’t break. He hadn’t—he _had_ , but he was putting the pieces back together, and refused to let them fall back down again.

            The rest of the memory filled the ensuing silence: the proposal, the reveal, the ultimatum. Keith cradled Lance closer, made himself keep watching. He needed the full scope of what Lance had been through; Lance was reliving everything for the sake of opening himself up, and Keith couldn’t do him dirty by looking away.

            _“You can’t hurt them. Please. You can’t.”_

 _“And why do you plea on their behalf? They’ve written you off. They cared only for the Red Paladin. Now that he’s passed, they have no desire to rescue you. What, do you think I’m_ lying? _”_

            “They never stopped,” Keith murmured, and he started rubbing Lance’s back again—whether it was more out of reassurance for Lance, or reassurance for himself, he wasn’t sure. “You should’ve seen Hunk. He was _scary_ when I got back. He was on the warpath.”

            Lance finally changed positions. He shifted so that he was sitting next to Keith, instead of on top of him. Keith kept a firm arm around him as Lance rested his head on Keith’s shoulder, took in a shuddering breath, and forced himself to watch everything else play out again.

            _“I won’t do it. I refuse. Throw me into the cells, lock me up,_ make _me a captive,_ I don’t care. _But I won_ _’t do it. I won’t betray them.”_

            _“No. You think you’re getting out of this easily? First of all, you’ve already betrayed them, several times over. After all, if you hadn’t sent us chasing down the Red Paladin, he wouldn’t have died in the first place. Secondly, you’ll do as I say, and not just for Voltron’s sake. Voltron’s already been targeted. You’ll do as I say, because if you_ don’t, _I_ _’m sure there are billions of people on Earth who would love to pay the price for your insubordination.”_

            _Hunk was right,_ Keith thought then, throat closing. Lotor had threatened Earth to keep Lance complacent—threatened his _family_ , the family he loved to death, the family he would’ve died to protect.

            The memories kept going. Keith stayed quiet about the tears tracking down his cheeks, while Lance also went quiet, having cried himself dry. He couldn’t cry over the ensuing memory of the arena, of his murder of Mirak, of his intimate wedding to Lotor, of his reconnection with Red and Blue—a moment of light amidst the darkness of all of the other memories, no matter how dim, as Red and Blue rumbled their warnings.

            Then there was the transmission. Keith listened to their exchange with his heart in his throat. His fingers curled tighter where they rested at Lance’s side.

            “I meant it,” Keith said. “None of this changes anything, none of this changes how I see you. It just helps me to understand. It helps me to help _you_.”

            Lance responded with a hardly-audible _mmhmm_ , in the back of his throat. His eyes were stuck on the fuzzy body of the guard he’d killed as the memory blurred, and changed, to Lance running through the halls of Central Command. Debating whether or not to kill his escort. The fight with Lotor, his capture, waking up in the lab—Keith’s gut twisted—and then the arena.

            The memories ended there.

            Keith and Lance sat in silence, other memories bumbling by, silently gathering themselves.

            “I still trust you,” Keith finally said, “and I’m sorry. I wish I could’ve saved you. I wish the team had gotten to you sooner.”

            “It’s not your fault,” Lance replied quietly.

            And silence took back over.

            Lance brought his other arm around Keith and pulled him into a hug that Keith returned just as gently. They settled their faces into the slopes of each others’ necks, breathing heavily, slowly. Keith didn’t move—not until Lance did. He pulled back, long enough to look Keith in the eyes. His eyes were red and puffy, and Keith imagined his looked the same.

            “Are you sure you want to do this, too?” Lance asked.

            “It’s only fair,” Keith responded. “We both did messed-up things, Lance. You deserve to know about what I did.”

            Lance nodded, took in a breath, rolled his shoulders. “Let’s do it.”

            The two of them shut their eyes, still holding onto each other, and concentrated on reaching out to Red again. Keith thought about his mindscape, and the way it had been when he woke up right after his rescue, the way Lance’s was now. The world tilted, less so than when they’d left their physical bodies.

            When Keith opened his eyes, he found himself in a place almost identical to where he’d just been with Lance, except now he could see the red undertones, underneath the swirling shadow, where Lance’s had been blue. The other difference was that he and Lance were still holding onto each other, when before, they’d woken up in Lance’s mindscape separated.

            Keith stood up, while Lance remained on the ground, waiting patiently as Keith wandered a short distance, memory bubbles floating toward him. He directed the bubbles into a line with his hands, gradually growing shakier and more unsteady, until he deemed the line in the right order.

            “Ready?” Keith asked.

            Lance raised his eyebrows.

            “Based on what you said before, I don’t think I’m the one you should be asking,” he responded, and opened up his arms for Keith to sit with him.

            Keith obliged, easing himself onto the floor, leaning against Lance as Lance wrapped protective arms around his frame. It seemed to come to Lance more easily than it had _before_ Keith had seen everything, and it made something in Keith relax.

            Just not for very long.

* * *

            Making the walk to Keith’s room in the dark had been nerve-wracking enough. After pushing him away, Lance hadn’t even been certain Keith would open up the door, much less hear him out and run with his idea. Once Keith _did,_ it was a matter of dredging everything back up, and that larger-than-he-was-comfortable-with part of Lance was prepared for Keith to run, to break the mind connection and head back to bed, clearly disgusted.

            He hadn’t.

            Keith had stayed and held Lance while he sobbed, and turned around and decided to show Lance his own memories. Lance wasn’t sure what he’d see here—surely, nothing Keith had gone through could be on the same level of despicable that Lance’s actions had been…right?

            Lance didn’t speak as Keith’s stream of memories began, all the way back to the first day after being separated, with waking up, blindfolded, bound, and gagged in the back of a van. His escape, his truck hijacking, the dive off the cliffside, running into the woman named Luce as she saved him from some guy named Stets.

            “I shouldn’t have trusted her,” Keith muttered, voice hoarse and bitter as he stared at the memory of himself climbing into her van, at the memory of Luce tossing him her gun, as if it would make the situation better. The next one showed Keith getting a shower, getting a meal before heading to bed.

            Lance’s stomach knotted. He’d heard Luce’s name multiple times over the comms in the breakout from Central Command—evidently, she was on their side _now,_ if it really was the same woman. Lance wondered just what she’d done to Keith, and got his answer when the next memory started, and Keith woke up in a lab.

            “She sold me out.”

            Sold him out and into torture.

            Lance’s mouth opened slightly as he watched scientists interrogate Keith, shock him without mercy while he shrieked, let him fall unconscious.

            Then the memory changed.

            Same lab, but empty. Keith inhaled sharply next to him and dropped his head, and Lance automatically drew him in closer.

            _“Lance, you’re here, h-how—”_

_“I can’t believe this.”_

            “I had so many nightmares,” Keith explained without looking up. He brought his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. “Sims, hallucinations…”

            The memory kept going, and bile burned in the back of Lance’s throat as he watched himself sneer at Keith, aim his bayard for his forehead.

            _“You let him take me. I was waiting for you. Do you know how long I waited before I caved? The others found me, but not all of me came back with them.”_

 _“I’m sorry. L-Lance, I_ tried, _I tried_ so fucking hard— _”_

            _“Not hard enough!”_

            Keith pleaded for his life in the memory as Lotor entered the room, while the Keith in Lance’s arms scrunched into a tighter ball, and Lance took to massaging circles into Keith’s arm, where his hand rested.

            “You did what you could,” Lance whispered. “You tried. It’s…it’s not your fault, we were outnumbered.”

            _“Are you jealous? Is it because you always seem to lose those dearest to you?”_

            Lance’s attention snapped back to the memory, grip automatically tightening on Keith, while Keith sniffled and shuddered, the only indication that he was still listening to everything happening. Lance stared as his memory-self relaxed in Lotor’s presence, into his arms, and continued taunting Keith, threatening Keith—

            _“Lance,_ please _—_ _”_

            The crackle of the ensuing blast ended the memory, and plunged them right on into the next one. Keith, being interrogated about his nightmare, about _Lance._ Keith, being injected with something that set him on edge, that had his fingertips tingling, like there was something hidden under his skin. Then the memory changed, again, to Keith escaping from his restraints.

            “Another nightmare, or sim, or something,” Keith whispered.

            Lance watched, horror growing, as the scene unfolded: Keith, stumbling upon his teammates, each about to be murdered. Lotor, taunting him. The team, each calling out to be rescued.

            _“I_ can’t _choose between them! I won_ _’t! They’re…they’re all I have! Don’t make me do this!”_

            Keith’s thoughts from the memory echoed around his mindscape as he tried to focus on what was happening, while the others scorned him—because his first choice would have been Lance.

            _“Sh-Shiro, th-that’s not true—”_

 _“You wouldn’t choose me?”_ A bitter little laugh, and Lance’s heart clenched. His memory-self was trying to guilt trip Keith, plain and simple, and Lance hated it. _“I always knew I was the extra. It’s all right—I know I’m replaceable.”_

            “You’re not replaceable,” Keith whispered then, as his memory-self expressed the same sentiment.

            The memory carried on, as the others beat him down with nothing but their words; as Keith made the choice to save Shiro first, because he was the most vulnerable; as Shiro and Lotor attacked, and dragged Keith from the room, while Keith caught sight of Hunk’s death, and listened to the others scream; as Lotor and Shiro bore down; as Keith came to his senses, while Lotor kicked him until he blacked out.

            And then the memory transitioned into the next one without pause. Interrogation, again, but Lotor was present this time, via transmission. One mention of his scar, and all Keith could think about was _Lance_ , and _his_ traumas—traumas Lance hardly realized Keith had been picking up on with the depth he had.

            _“Lance cares. Lance’ll always care,”_ Keith’s thoughts from then echoed. _“I’ll just have to out-care him, then.”_

            Memory-Keith returned to reality, listened to Lotor continue to taunt him, watched as the clip from the initial broadcast played…

            _“You brilliant little shit. You brilliant,_ fucking ridiculous _little shit._ _”_

            Lance thought he didn’t have a drop left to cry in him, and found himself surprised when tears sprang to his eyes and blurred his vision, as the memory wrapped with Keith’s escape from the lab, and escape from Luce and the Obscurities. It was such a Keith-like escape, and Lance’s chest tightened at the thought as he watched Keith steal a motorbike and gun it down the road without so much as a glance back. No, instead, Keith fucking stood up on the bike and _whooped._

            And in the next memory, the euphoria was gone.

            Keith had grown sicker, more delirious with pain—delirious to the point that he imagined Lance with him.

            “You kept me going,” Keith admitted, swallowing back a sob, and Lance looked away from the memory for the briefest second, just to glance down at the mop of dark hair that hid Keith’s face.

            That was all Keith said. Lance returned his gaze to the memory—Keith’s recapture, his _willingness_ to get recaptured, the transmission, the ship being shot down, his reunion with Tiva and his interrogation in the prison, his breakout.

            Explosions filled up the space of the memory, while memory-Keith hit solid wall and crumpled. Lance’s stomach lurched at the sight of Keith on the ground, half-dead, until Tiva picked him up and got him going again.

            “I don’t know how many people died in that prison.” Keith’s voice wobbled. “I don’t know who died in my escape from Ven. And that still wasn’t it.”

            The next memories consisted of a planet with a forest full of trees that oozed bioluminescent sludge, and Keith had the heart to stop and think about taking Lance for a date there. Maybe Lance would’ve given Keith a wistful smile, but Keith shrank further in on himself the longer these memories went on, as he and Tiva got closer and closer to the walled city, to the market…and then to the gangs that roamed in the dark.

            A feeling of dread washed over Lance, and it was at this point that Keith finally leaned over and buried his face against Lance’s shoulder, as the fight began.

            Violence, sprays of blood and gore, and it was over in a matter of a minute or two, with multiple dead aliens, and Keith with the shit beat out of him. The memory ended with Keith being carried off, and the next one picked up with Keith waking up alone, on a cot, in the ship he’d stolen.

            Keith’s fingers knotted in the fabric of Lance’s shirt.

            _“She abandoned you. She saw what you did to those aliens. You didn’t even stop to think.”_

            Keith’s _own voice_ sounded disgusted, accusatory, full of malice and shame and all directed at _himself._ Lance held onto Keith tighter, while Keith gasped in his arms, and tried to force down another cry.

            “It’s alright,” Lance murmured against the top of Keith’s head, eyes wide as he watched the Keith from the memory begin breaking down.

            _“I killed them. I killed all of them. Tiva’s gone. I’m all alone. Again.”_

            “You’re not alone, I promise, I’m right here,” Lance whispered in an attempt to soothe Keith, but his voice was catching, breaking, and the memory continued on: _“They all leave, one way or another. You were meant to be alone.”_

            Lance nearly asked Keith to stop, just skip over to the next memory, because it wasn’t doing him any good to relive this. He was shaking like a leaf in Lance’s arms, while his sobs on the cot turned to shrieks. Lance’s heart shattered the moment Keith wished for it to all be _over,_ right before Tiva came in and found him and dragged him out of it, and then left again, while Keith attempted to contact the team.

            He spoke like he hadn’t just been so deep in his self-hatred that he’d been screaming and crying. He kept himself collected, for the most part, as he informed Team Voltron that this could’ve been the last time they heard from him.

            _“…And Lance, if for some reason you’re hearing this…”_

            Lance’s grip turned crushing, fingers practically digging into Keith’s arm, probably hard enough to leave marks.

            _“I wish we had more time. I’m sorry for all the suffering I’ve caused you.”_

            “Don’t,” Lance whispered. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Keith. I promise.”

            Keith might’ve nodded, but Lance couldn’t be sure. The memories continued—Keith’s refusal to make a last stand, his rescue, Allura in his mindscape, the training deck with Shiro, the meeting with the diplomats and the surge of protective anger that pushed Keith through it.

            That was where Keith’s memories ended.

            His sobs were nowhere near as loud as Lance’s had been—he’d been successful in muffling them, breath hot on Lance’s shirt. For a long time, he remained there, choking and gasping, and Lance held him, threaded fingers through his hair, rubbed his back.

            “It’s okay,” Lance murmured. “It’s alright.”

            Keith refused to look up, but Lance was okay with it. It just meant he couldn’t see _Lance_ crying for him, for the broken messes they’d become over the last two months, edges jagged. The pieces that had slotted into place so easily before now barely squeezed into position, sides scraping up against each other, other chunks missing entirely.

            “Thank you,” Lance whispered. “You didn’t have to do this. But you did, and…”

            Lance’s voice caught again, and Keith finally raised his head. He looked at Lance for a heartbeat and nodded.

            “We both did,” Keith said. “Now we’ve…we’ve just gotta figure out how to make this work.”

* * *

            “Do we wake them up?”

            “We’re gonna have to eventually.”

            “Better question: do we get a _picture_ of this?”

            “ _Pidge_.”

            “C’mon, Shiro, they’ll think it’s cute.”

            Allura, Hunk, Pidge, and Shiro each stood just inside of the doorway to the Red Lion’s hangar. At the base of the Red Lion’s paw, Keith and Lance were passed out, wrapped in each others’ arms. Lance’s jacket was draped over them like a blanket, their only heat source besides each other.

            “What do you think they were doing last night?” Hunk asked, placing his hands on his hips. “Late-night flight or something?”

            “No,” Allura answered with a shake of her head. “We would’ve gotten an alert that the Red Lion was leaving the hangar.”

            “Do you think—”

            “I don’t even wanna hear the question.”

            “Oh, come _on,_ Shiro!”

            “Guys—shush—”

            Across the way, Lance and Keith stirred, and Allura, Hunk, Shiro, and Pidge fell silent. For a little while, they seemed unaware that the others were even present; they took their sweet old time sitting up, murmuring things to each other that the rest of the team couldn’t hear. Finally, it was Keith who stiffened, and turned to face them. Lance followed suit, eyes widening.

            “Uh, how-how long have you guys…been standing there…?” Lance asked.

            “Not long,” Hunk answered. “What were you two doing in here?”

            Keith and Lance glanced at each other, before Lance looked back at Hunk.

            “Um, we…we had a bonding moment.”

            Pidge snorted. Shiro glanced at the ceiling, trying and failing to suppress a smirk while Keith shot Lance an exasperated look. Hunk sighed, and looked at Allura. She wore a small smile of her own and shrugged at him, before returning her attention to the Red and Blue Paladins, both of whom were staring at her quizzically.

            “So, uh, why’s the whole team here?” Lance asked.

            “We couldn’t find either of you,” Hunk said. “You _missed breakfast,_ which was _delicious,_ by the way. Then you two weren’t in your rooms, and pulling up your energy signatures brought us here. We didn’t know why you’d be in Red’s hangar. We thought something happened.”

            Another glance between Lance and Keith.

            “Well…truthfully, a lot happened last night,” Lance said. “Um…”

            He looked at Keith again; Keith gave him an encouraging nod. Lance took in a deep breath and looked at the rest of the team, eyes jumping from Hunk, to Allura, to Pidge, to Shiro.

            “So you guys know those headsets? The ones we used to form Voltron with our minds?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao so seeing as this was supposed to be the last but isn't, here's a sneak peek of the next chapter (IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE THE LAST BEFORE THE EPILOGUE BUT WE'LL SEE WHAT HAPPENS):  
> -team bonding  
> -a meeting  
> -a mission


	36. The One in Which There's a Final Showdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team bonds. There's a meeting. And there's a final confrontation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> or, the one in which eileen spent her entire shower debating the symbolism of "if character a murders character b" in order to figure something out. 
> 
> **trigger warnings for murder and attempted assassination**

Chapter 36

            All of Team Voltron—Keith, Lance, Shiro, Hunk, Pidge, Allura, and Coran—gathered on the bridge approximately an hour later.

            Typically, for an exercise like this, Team Voltron would’ve gathered in the lounge or on the training deck, but those had both been opened up to the visiting diplomats for recreation. This sort of thing was team-only, an intimate affair that required the privacy only the bridge could provide them with.

            Coran, Allura, Shiro, Pidge, and Hunk sat in a semicircle at the front of the bridge, backs to the window, while Keith and Lance sat in front of them, next to each other. Keith had hands on the ground as he leaned back with his legs crossed, and Lance placed his hand on top of one of Keith’s, a gesture blocked from the others’ lines of vision by Keith’s knee.

            Each member of the team wore one of the white headsets Lance had talked about. Lance’s eyes swept over each one of them, heart pounding a little harder in his chest, even though he wasn’t the one who was going first.

            In the hour between the team finding the two of them asleep in Red’s hangar, and gathering here, Lance and Keith discussed their plans, and decided that Keith would be going first. The team already knew about his experiences, just based upon what Keith had told them, and what snippets Allura had been able to see in his mindscape. This would give them the whole picture…or at least, as complete a picture as he could, without having the entire team in his head.

            “Is everyone ready?” Keith asked, and found himself involuntarily leaning closer to Lance.

            “Whenever you are,” Shiro answered. “Take all the time you need.”

            Keith nodded, then shut his eyes and dropped his head. The other Paladins watched as a screen flickered to life in the middle of the group, and Keith’s stream of memories began. The sound from his memories and thoughts during his memories was transmitted to the other Paladins through the headsets, ringing loud and clear in their minds. For anyone who wasn’t Keith and Lance, it must have been something special, new.

            For Keith and Lance, it was like watching a movie in a theater, and then going back and rewatching it on a TV or computer, and Keith almost preferred it this way.

            It was easier this time around. Maybe it was because the team already knew, and he’d already showed Lance, and had already sobbed over these memories within the last twenty-four hours, regardless that the sobbing took place in his mindscape, and not his physical body. In any capacity, Keith didn’t find himself choking on cries as nearly as often as he had before—his sorrow was mostly silent this time, tears tracking soundless trails down his cheeks, breaths coming quietly and unevenly.

            At some point, Lance began playing with his fingers to calm him down: tapping in patterns, tapping at random, lacing and unlacing them, curling them over and under each other. Tiny little gestures to let Keith know he was here, he knew what was going on, and that the two of them would be okay.

            Earlier, Keith’s words alone had the ability to send his teammates into tears. Now, seeing everything playing out, listening to the darkest of Keith’s inner thoughts, things he’d worked so hard to conceal before, had them borderline sobbing the way he’d been in his mindscape.

            _No wonder,_ they must’ve realized then. _No wonder he didn_ _’t want to say anything before. No wonder he kept everything under wraps._

            By the time Keith’s memories finished, the team was a mess. Shiro was huddled over both Pidge and Allura, Hunk and Coran leaning in from the ends of the group. All of them were shaking, in various states of composure, or lack thereof. Keith clutched at his own chest with one hand, hunched forward, while Lance leaned over his back, arm now around his shoulders, a cheek pressed against Keith’s.

            It took a long time for anyone to say something, and when someone did, it was Hunk. Of all of the members of the team sitting before Keith and Lance, he somehow managed to keep it together the best. He rubbed a hand over his eyes and sniffled.

            “Dude,” Hunk said, “when you explained it... _damn_. I-I don’t think any of us were picturing _that_.”

            “Yeah,” Keith whispered hoarsely. “Well, that’s….that’s how it all went down. But my story’s over with. I-I just...don’t wanna talk about it anymore. It’s out there now.”

            Keith’s eyes slowly roved over the group as a whole, coming to rest on Shiro, who tried to sit up as best he could, comforting arms still around Pidge and Allura.

            “Alright,” Shiro finally said. He shifted his gaze to Lance and raised his eyebrows.

            Beside Keith, Lance stiffened just the slightest, and then nodded. He sat up straighter, while Keith readjusted against him. Keith placed a hand on his back, while Lance appraised the group in front of him. He swallowed hard and made himself look each of his teammates in the eyes.

            “I don’t want pity,” Lance said quietly. “I’m...I’m not looking for anything except for everyone to know and understand. I...made a lot of decisions I’m not proud of. Some of them you saw. A lot, you haven’t. It’s not fair to hide them from you guys.”

With that, Lance called up his memories, and Keith closed off the thoughts of his own.

            The sequence was almost as bad for Keith as it was for Lance. His guilt didn’t subside, even in the second watch-through. If anything, it grew, as he picked apart little details he hadn’t been able to catch the first time—how half of Lance and Lotor’s interactions seemed to take place in private places, at Lotor’s suggestion; how Lotor, even before he knew Lance was acting, seemed to keep an air of apprehension and extreme precaution; how Lotor ensured Lance’s constant isolation from others, ensured that he had no one to turn to but him.

            This was what his own failures sentenced Lance to.

            Lance couldn’t hold himself together nearly as long as Keith had, but he was still in better shape than he’d been in the mindscape. He grit his teeth, breaths coming out shallow, body rigid. Keith pressed himself against Lance not unlike the way Lance had just minutes before.

            “It’s okay, you’re okay,” Keith kept repeating in a voice just low enough for Lance to hear, and no one else.

            The others, too, were losing their cool.

            As it had for Keith before, the story they’d only been able to see in clips stolen from security feeds and broadcasts was now coming together in full, new information filling in the gaps. By the time the team reached the last few memories, the bridge was full of sobs that could no longer be stifled. Any minute now, Keith half-expected someone to break protocol and enter the bridge, just to find out what was happening.

            “Lance,” Hunk choked out, when the final memory ended, “buddy, I am _so, so sorry_.”

            He surged forward and wrapped both Keith and Lance in a crushing hug that the others threw themselves into, while Lance let himself lose it, _again_.

            “You’re _strong_ , do you understand me?” Pidge added with a hiss. “A coward wouldn’t be able to get through that. And you’re _not_ a monster. You’re a fucking survivor.”

            “You did what you had to,” Shiro jumped in.

            “I wish we’d gotten to you sooner,” Allura murmured.

            Lance nodded, and then muttered, “Fuck, I said I didn’t want pity…”

            “Not pity, my boy,” Coran said with a shake of his head. “Just the love you’ve been deprived of.”

            Lance made a noise in the back of his throat, some cross between a whimper and a squeak, and he ducked his head down further, purposely trying to get lost in the tangle of limbs that was Team Voltron’s group hug. The team stayed huddled on the ground for a long time, sniffling and letting out their last cries, until Shiro cleared his throat.

            “Lance, Keith...you two showed us what you went through. We can’t say we’ve had entirely innocent encounters, either. Guys...I think we need to show them everything _we_ were up to.”

            The others slowly pulled back, exchanged glances, then scooted out, into a tight circle. Lance found himself between Hunk and Keith, while Keith ended up between Lance and Coran.

            One by one, the other members of Team Voltron called upon their memories, and pieced together the story of the last two months for Lance and Keith: the botched missions on Tarvin One and Tarvin Two, complete with Hunk blowing a guy’s head off just to rescue Pidge; sleepless days and nights scanning for new information, picking through what they had, lying about the amounts of sleep they got; the first transmission with Lotor; Pidge going down on one of the planets the team was ambushed on, followed by Pidge and Allura nearly getting caught up in the chain of explosions, ending with Pidge in the pods and Shiro’s guilt eating him alive; the team watching the broadcast, and piecing together Lance’s use of Morse code.

            The return to Tarvin Two, and the team’s near-deaths at the hands of the Galra, as the Eruda Center collapsed on top of them.

            The entry into the Bolza System. Coming down on Ruovi. The prison and ambush.

            Shiro nearly burning Asnolus’s face off.

            Shiro dropped his head at that, flexing the fingers on his GalraTech hand. Keith swallowed thickly and looked at Lance, out of the corner of his eye, before returning his gaze to Shiro. If Shiro felt Keith’s eyes on him, he didn’t show it.

            The memories continued on— the discovery of Keith’s distress signals, largely having gone ignored in favor of, ironically enough, finding Keith; his rescue; his death, and the Paladins breaking down; the frank discussion of assassinating Lotor, and Hunk at the helm of some of the discussions. Through it all, Keith noticed a thread, of the blatant distrust of anyone who wasn’t on the team, of the blatant distrust of even their staunchest allies.

            Things ended with Keith finally coming out of his cryopod, and the vows to get to Central Command to rescue Lance once and for all.

            Keith swept watery eyes over the rest of the team. Their faces were varying degrees of flushed, whether out of renewed anger at Lotor and his forces for the suffering they’d caused the team, or shame, or something else, Keith couldn’t be certain. He just knew that they were much calmer than he and Lance were—when he turned to look at Lance, he, too, was crying again.

            Keith couldn’t figure out how he and Lance still had tears left.

            “You’re not alone in this,” Allura finally spoke up, softly. “The past few phoebs have had...an adverse effect on all of us. But there’s no going back to undo things. We must keep moving forward.”

            She leveled eyes at Lance and Keith, and waited until they both nodded before she continued on.

            “Tomorrow, all of our allies will finally be aboard this ship. We’ll be having a final meeting before we go down to the surface of Odonae, just to be sure everyone is in agreement about what to do with Lotor. He’s been on the move, but has ultimately remained in the same area. We must intervene before he can get himself back on his feet, metaphorically speaking,” Allura said.

            “That’s on top of...other discussions,” Shiro added with a sigh. “We need to go over the Central Command mission and Milky Way battle. We lost forces, and some of our allies...aren’t pleased.”

            “ _Allies_ in the loosest sense of the term, for some,” Coran muttered under his breath.

            “They weren’t pleased even when Keith came back,” Pidge said, and drew her knees up to her chest, staring with narrowed eyes at the rest of the team, before settling on Lance and Keith. “I swear, if they even so much as _look_ at either of you wrong…”

            Keith smiled thinly. “Thanks, Pidge.”

            Lance echoed his sentiment quietly, before Allura dismissed the group. The Paladins each stood up, and Allura, Coran, and Shiro set immediately to work, leaving Hunk, Pidge, Keith, and Lance to fend for themselves for the time being.

            “Hey, Hunk,” Keith said, and Hunk raised his eyebrows.

            “Yeah?”

            “You said we missed breakfast?”

            Hunk shot a quick glance at Pidge before allowing a smile to tug up the ends of his mouth.

            “Yeah, you did, but I can make more of what we had. It’s this recipe I found in the back of one of the older cabinets, and it’s actually _really good_. It’s kinda like Earth crêpes…”

            Hunk led the way to the kitchen as he explained what he’d cooked earlier that morning, while Pidge, Keith, and Lance followed. Pidge walked at Hunk’s side, and Keith and Lance walked behind them. Lance had his hands jammed into the pockets of the jacket he’d put back on, up until Keith leaned over and nudged his shoulder. Lance looked down; Keith had his hand slightly extended, wide open.

            Lance relaxed his shoulders and took his hand out of his pocket, and laced his fingers with Keith’s.

* * *

            “I mean, they already hate me—”

            “If they say _anything,_ they have me and the rest of the team to deal with.”

            “...Please don’t put yourself in the line of fire like that.”

            “Too late, already did it before. They hate me now, too, so I really don’t have much left to lose.”

            It was the start of the castle’s night cycle, and Lance and Keith were in Lance’s room, a place Lance hadn’t been to—hadn’t _really_ spent an extended amount of time in—since before the Tarvin mission. Lance was stretched out on his mattress, and Keith lay on top of him, between his legs, head against his chest. Lance threaded fingers through Keith’s hair with one hand, and rubbed slow circles into his back with his other. Keith wore Lance’s jacket like a blanket, as they had the night before.

            Compared to the room Lance had had at Central Command, _this_ space was far smaller, far more cramped. The mattress was lumpy and springy and dug into his back in certain places, and the pillow wasn’t nearly as puffy as it could’ve been—not like the soft mattress and silk sheets he’d had before, and the marshmallow-like pillows that’d supported his head and muffled his cries in the middle of the night.

            Lance was the comfiest he’d been in ages.

            Perhaps it helped that he wasn’t trapped in someone’s arms. Perhaps it helped that he knew his way around here, knew every nook and cranny of his room, had mementos from random planets scattered about. Whatever it was, Lance could finally let himself fully relax here.

            Keith, too, was at ease. He was finally back in a bed, and better yet, had someone solid to hold onto. No more running around alone, or being poked and prodded at in a lab, or carving out yet another temporary space for himself aboard a stolen ship.

            “What do you mean _already did it?_ ”

            Keith was aware of Lance dipping his chin to look at him.

            “One of the diplomats…,” Keith started, and decided to tell him outright, instead of beating around the bush. “I made a comment...something like, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Lotor would’ve traded back Voltron to keep you. Someone wanted to make that the plan: bargain for Red and Blue by letting Lotor have you. I might’ve called everything they said _bullshit_. And I might’ve slapped the table. And maybe I stood up and almost knocked my chair over. And then, maybe Pidge backed me up by standing _on_ a chair to make her point.”

            “ _Keith—_ ”

            “They’d already made plenty of other comments we could’ve gone without. There were like, three of them that really...didn’t know how to keep their mouths shut.”

            “Jeez,” Lance said, and exhaled a breath. “Some allies.”

            “I think some were allies of allies, and I’m willing to bet that the three of them were,” Keith said.

            “You never know,” Lance responded.

            After an agreeing grunt from Keith, they fell back into easy silence. Keith, with his ear pressed to Lance’s chest, listened to his heartbeat, and tried to sync his breathing with Lance’s. Lance continued to stroke Keith’s dark tresses, twisting strands loosely around his fingers.

            “I missed you,” Keith breathed out, quietly.

            He shut his eyes and yawned, one hand reaching up and coming to rest on Lance’s arm. He curled his fingers slightly around it. Lance’s breath hitched, just for a moment, before he, too, closed his eyes. Leaned back. Breathed in deeply and absorbed every last detail of this moment.

            “I missed you too.”

            Keith fell asleep first. Lance could tell the moment he stopped stirring, and his breathing slowed. Lance let his head finally fall against the wall of the little alcove that made up his bed. Eventually, the fingers in Keith’s hair and hand on his back stilled.

            Lance peered at Keith through half-lidded eyes one more time before sleep claimed him, and murmured a quiet _I love you_ as he drifted off.

* * *

            Shiro arrived to the meeting room before the rest of the team, save for Allura and Coran, who’d gotten there before anyone else to prepare the agenda. Items on their itinerary included discussing what, exactly, happened in that mission to Central Command and in the battle in the Milky Way—what went right, what went wrong—and how to deal with Lotor. Shiro suspected that most attendees of this meeting were still going to be on board with assassination. After losing multiple allies, including some who’d been at that last meeting...there was good reason for them to want blood, Shiro couldn’t deny that.

            He’d been on board, too, up until midday yesterday.

            The team was going to have a lot of healing to do, once this was all over. Keith and Lance and the rest of the team  had enough injuries, enough blood on their hands, and Shiro had no desire to tear the wounds wider and stain them further. Assassinating Lotor would get rid of him and his reign of terror, yes…

            Shiro sighed, shut his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose as he bent forward over the table, propping his arm up by his elbow. A few of the diplomats meandering about the room took notice. One of them slid over, sluglike, and sidled up to him, plopping themselves down in Pidge’s usual seat.

            “Something wrong, Black Paladin?”

            There was something off about the lilt to their voice, and Shiro wasn’t sure if he should’ve read the question as malicious or not. He raised his head slightly, and peered at the alien through narrowed eyes. This one hadn’t been present last time—one of the many who’d said they couldn’t make it in time, and had gotten the information relayed  to them over a lengthy comm session with the other allies. They hadn’t been here for the team’s outbursts, but Shiro didn’t know which members who _had_ been present had given the rundown.

            “No, no,” Shiro replied, trying to wave his hand dismissively, nonchalantly. “Just thinking about the upcoming mission.”

            The sluglike alien studied Shiro skeptically. Shiro shifted uncomfortably in his seat, until the alien closed their eyes and _tsk_ ed.

            “I think you’re holding back,” the alien said. “I trust this apprehension comes as a result of the last meeting? Perhaps the debate about the fate of the Blue Paladin?”

            Shiro stilled. He stiffly turned his head to get a better look at this alien. A moment later, he sensed a presence at his back, and the hand that came down on his shoulder revealed the presence as Allura.

            “And what do you believe the best course of action would have been?” Allura asked, mustering up every ounce of authority she could— _which_ , Shiro mused absently, was a _lot_ —as she stared down the alien from over Shiro’s head.

            The sluglike alien stared for a minute, and then allowed a slow smile to spread over their face.

            “The mission is in the past, and my opinion, now, matters little...although I believe it would have mattered little in the first place. I will say this: I believe you’re fortunate there had been no insurrection, and no attempts to overthrow your power. Had there been, you could have found a steadfast ally in me.”

            Shiro closed his eyes, just so the alien couldn’t see him rolling them behind his eyelids.

            “I see,” Allura remarked, and patted Shiro’s shoulder as she turned away. Shiro reopened his eyes and turned in his seat, just to watch her walk back toward the viewing screen, where Coran was busy jotting down the meeting agenda for all to see.

            The sluglike alien watched her, too, and then turned back to Shiro.

            “If every last ally in this room had been against you, you would have gone through with the mission anyway, wouldn’t you?”

            Shiro considered the question. His immediate answer was yes, the team was going to rescue Lance, one way or another. But the practicality of it… They’d gotten out alive because of a distraction stealing away Lotor’s forces, because of Luce, saving them from Varx’s wrath and keeping the troops at Central Command busy, allowing a fairly clean getaway for the Lions. With just the team—just six souls, bent on saving their seventh—Shiro doubted they could have pulled it off.

            “Maybe,” Shiro answered.

            The alien’s smile never left, even when they got out of Pidge’s seat and went back to the other side of the room.

* * *

            Approximately half an hour later, the rest of the diplomats had streamed into the room, and took up their seats at the table, leaving four chairs empty. Then the doors to the room hissed open again, and in walked the remaining four Paladins in single file order: Pidge, Keith, Lance, Hunk.

            One Paladin to guard the front of their two most vulnerable teammates, and one to guard them from the back.

            A hush fell over the room as the Paladins got to their seats: Pidge on Shiro’s right, Keith at Allura’s left, Lance at Keith’s left, and Hunk at Pidge’s right.

            Lance couldn’t pretend he didn’t notice the diplomats staring, leering. A few whispers started up, and Lance’s stomach roiled. He could imagine the things they were saying, could hear the voices getting excited in the back of his head. He dropped his gaze to the table, studying his reflection in the meticulously polished surface of it, and wondered, distantly, how anyone had had the time to clean it.

            “Everyone, settle down, please,” Allura said. Gone was the pleasant smile she’d tried to wear at the last meeting. Her voice was sharp, despite her words. The diplomats fell silent again, while Lance shifted uncomfortably in his seat, hands folded in his lap.

            Allura swept her eyes over the group. Many of their key players had survived the mission and battle: Tiva, Ryner, Shay, Matt, Olia, Queen Paveir, Chancellor Verna, Luce, the milky-eyed diplomat, the scarred diplomat, the kelpy-haired one. There were a few who’d mostly stayed silent whose seats were now empty or occupied with those who hadn’t been in attendance at the last meeting.

            “As you all know, the purpose of our last mission was to recover the Red and Blue Lions, and our Blue Paladin.”

            Lance lifted his head, just long enough to look at Allura. She gave him a tight-lipped smile, face softening for just a fraction of a second before she looked away from him, and back at the other diplomats. They were staring again, and the smile Lance had returned to Allura dropped from his face. Keith shifted slightly in his seat. He unfolded his hands, resting on the table, and let one fall into his lap, while the other fell into the gap between his and Lance’s seats.

            Without even so much as a glance over, Lance reached over and grasped Keith’s hand. He squeezed, tight, before loosening his grip.

            “We’re gathered here to assess what went right and wrong on this mission, and discuss our next steps in getting rid of Lotor once and for all. He remains on the surface of Odonae, the planet we now orbit. Our intent is to confront him—”

            “And assassinate him?” the milky-eyed diplomat interrupted, and this time, Keith squeezed Lance’s hand. Lance understood, between the squeeze on his hand and the scowl that automatically deepened on Keith’s face, that this must have been one of the diplomats who’d given the team trouble at the last meeting.

            “We’ll get there,” Allura said, a shadow passing over her face. “Now, if you’d be so kind, I wasn’t finished speaking. _Anyway_ , depending on how our confrontation ends, we’ll need to decide how to move forward. No matter what we do, Lotor is out of power. We’ll need to decide how best to handle the impending fallout and collapse of the Galra power structure.”

            Lance held his breath, waiting for another remark—something directed at him, something about being Lotor’s husband, maybe a sneer or two—but nothing came. At least, nothing that he could hear, and nothing he cared to raise his head to see.

            “Now,” Allura said, “our first topic is our discussion of the mission. On the most basic level, we’ve deemed our mission a success and the battle in the Milky Way a victory. However, we understand that both of these operations had complications and shortcomings that cost us dearly.”

            “Easy for you to say,” someone muttered under their breath. “You didn’t lose anyone important to _you_.”

            Keith’s eyes cut to Hunk, Pidge, and Shiro, and then down the expanse of the table, but none of them could identify the alien who’d spoken up. They must have been one of the ones who’d been present for the battle, but not the last meeting. Still, Keith caught mouths moving, muttering agreements…and even Tiva’s impassive expression broke, just for a second, so she could frown.

            “We’ve lost allies, and their loss is no less impactful and no less deserving of mourning,” Allura responded, voice measured, the edge from earlier blunted just slightly. The alien _hmph_ ed to themselves and sank back in their seat, their four arms in two separate crosses. Allura’s cheek twitched, as she shot glances at the other Paladins.

            “ _Continuing_ ,” she said, “I’ve compiled a list of things I’ve heard so far about what went right and what went wrong on the Milky Way mission. Coran, if you would, please.”

            Diplomats murmured and whispered to each other, some a little more snidely than others, as Coran pulled up a list, typed out and translated into multiple languages, on the screen behind Keith and Lance. Keith used the cover of turning around to view the screen to get a better glimpse of Lance, and the deep frown on his face. When Lance turned, he locked eyes with Keith, and Keith took in the guilty expression he wore.

            Then Lance looked away.

            “The biggest complaint lodged over the last several quintants has been that our forces’ firepower _and_ armor was weaker compared to that of the Galra,” Allura read off, “which would account for the losses we experienced. However, our forces managed to hold out, and I believe securing a victory with the odds we faced is still something worth celebrating. Still, we cannot let this go ignored. One of our goals moving forward will be to strengthen our forces.”

            “I have an idea about what would help strengthen our forces,” one of the diplomats said, hand shooting up, and Keith’s blood automatically started boiling.

            Out of all three diplomats from hell, this one was at the top of Keith’s shit list. No matter how hard he tried, he could not get past the memory of the scarred diplomat advocating for the team to leave Lance in Lotor’s clutches in exchange for Voltron.

            “Yes?” Allura responded.

            The scarred diplomat leveled a steely gaze at Allura, eyes cutting to Lance every so often as they spoke: “Why not use the advantages we have? We have direct access to information on the Empire sitting right at this table, after all.”

            Lance must have sensed his outburst before he could even get to his feet—there was a sharp tug on Keith’s arm, and Keith twitched in his seat, his other hand curling into a fist as he stared at the diplomat.

            “I would advise you to be a little more courteous, Ravinski,” Allura warned. “We’ve _all_ suffered, Lance included.”

            “No, no,” Lance muttered, and finally decided to acknowledge the group of diplomats. “Let them talk. They’ve got something to say; let them say it directly. I can take it.”

            Keith’s head turned quickly in Lance’s direction. The only response he got out of Lance was another squeeze of the hand, his jaw tightening just the slightest.

            Ravinski’s eyebrow quirked, before a smirk came across their face. Lance swallowed thickly, and Keith’s free hand twitched again, drifting down to the side of his armor. He took note of those smiling along with Ravinski, of those moving even the tiniest bit in their seats, of whose hands he could and couldn’t see.

            “You haven’t spoken up once,” Ravinski said. They spoke directly to Lance, eyes narrowing, bright with a sadistic glee that reminded Keith of Lotor. Briefly, he wondered how Ravinski even ended up at this table; they were supposed to be an ally of Voltron, and last Keith checked, allies didn’t outright attack a Paladin who’d just gone through hell.

            “You’d think for someone _innocent,_ you’d be jumping at the chance to clear your name. Not only do you refuse to defend yourself, but you haven’t exactly offered anything _helpful,_ either. You’d think, as Lotor’s second-in-command, you would have all sorts of relevant information. And yet, you’ve offered _nothing._ I’ve barely even seen you around the castle in the last few quintants, except with the Red Paladin. Do you think you can just have us risk our lives for _you_ and do nothing in return?”

            Lance nodded, still silent, and looked out at the other diplomats.

            “Anyone else agree with them?”

            “Lance—” Hunk started, his voice full of barely-concealed anger, but Lance held a hand up.

            “I wanna know,” Lance said.

            He waited. Gradually, several more hands went up—the milky-eyed diplomat and the kelpy-haired one included, along with a few others—and Lance nodded again.

            “I understand,” Lance said. “I’d probably be mad, too. Some of the things I did were despicable, and they can’t be undone. I chose a course of action that put me in a position of power, and I used that power to hurt people. I’m sorry, and I wish I could go back, I wish I could save the lives lost under my control…but I can’t. You have every right to be angry with me.”

            “A sob story?” the milky-eyed diplomat spoke up. “You expect us to be kinder to you because of a _sob story?_ What about the stories of every voice you si—”

            “Would you _shut up?_ ” Keith interrupted, finally.

            The milky-eyed diplomat blinked. “Excuse you—”

            “No, excuse _you_ ,” Hunk jumped in, and the milky-eyed diplomat shifted to get a better look at the Yellow Paladin, whose clenched fists rested on the table. “I don’t see how attacking Lance for a situation he’s clearly remorseful for is helpful in moving forward. I don’t see what you’re trying to accomplish by making him feel _worse_ over a situation he’s already beyond torn up about. So how about you keep quiet, unless you have _good_ suggestions to offer, and we get on with the meeting?”

            “ _I_ fail to see how placing the emotions of a Paladin who’s _openly admitted_ to committing treason above the emotions and needs of members of your alliance, who have suffered and lost loved ones _because of his actions_ , is any better of a course of action,” the diplomat fired back.

            “Keith, Hunk, Jasthino, _enough_ ,” Allura said, voice severe. “What’s done is _done._ ”

            “This meeting is for the discussion of the events that unraveled several quintants ago. Our purpose is to dissect those things to find out what worked and what didn’t. Avoiding them is counteractive,” Jasthino tried.

            “Yeah, and by that point, Lance was under _mind-control_ ,” Pidge retorted. “You’re giving him shit for things that happened _before_ this mission.”

            “The mission wouldn’t have been needed—”

            “The mission wouldn’t have been needed if Lotor wasn’t an obsessive, kidnapping piece of shit,” Pidge said.

            Jasthino glared, fists tightening. “The mission wouldn’t have been needed if the _universe_ _’s greatest weapon_ could hold its own!”

            “Can everyone just stop?” Lance finally spoke up again.

            He sat in his seat, shoulders bunched, and slowly wrenched his hand out of Keith’s. Keith opened his mouth to say something to him, but then closed it, watching Lance carefully. Lance stood up and rolled his shoulders, tried to ease some of the tension out of them, as he appraised the group in front of him. Many diplomats were scowling—very few looked at him with even an ounce of sympathy.

            “I’ll take the full blame for everything that’s happened, and I wish I could offer more than apologies and…my _sob story._ But fighting is getting us no—”

            A shot rang out across the room. Lance cut himself off and stumbled back as something nailed his chestplate, just a couple inches above and to the side of his heart. The chestplate took most of the shot without so much as a crack, and Lance looked down at the now-scuffed spot on his armor.

            Keith wouldn’t soon forget the shock on Lance’s face when he raised his head.

            He summoned his bayard and was seconds away from leaping onto the table when Lance snapped out of it and caught his arm, yanking him back. By that time, Hunk, Pidge, and Shiro had all kicked their chairs back, and Pidge, too, had her bayard in hand. Allura, meanwhile, slammed the butt of her staff against the table, sending an electric current skittering over the top. Several diplomats jerked back, while heads swiveled, torn between the Paladins and the diplomat who’d fired the shot—the kelpy-haired diplomat.

            “That is _enough._ ”

            Allura’s voice had gone dangerously low and dangerously close to a growl. She pointed her staff at the diplomat, who leveled the gun at her, while other diplomats slowly stood up and drew their own weapons—most pointed at the floor, a few covertly pointed in certain directions.

            “Yes, it is _enough_ ,” the kelpy-haired diplomat said. “I’m just trying to get rid of the problem. Poor leadership kills, you know.”

            Allura didn’t speak right away. The other Paladins shifted on their feet. Lance was still in shock, and his grip on Keith’s arm had turned to steel, because the only other alternative was for him to start shaking, and he wasn’t keen on showing any more weakness in front of these people than he already had. Keith and Pidge were seconds away from transforming their bayards into their weapons, while Hunk and Shiro summoned theirs.

            “Are you trying to stage a mutiny?” Allura finally found her voice.

            “Not _trying_ ,” the diplomat responded, and their trigger finger twitched—

            And then the gun blew out of their hand.

            The diplomat’s head snapped in Lance’s direction. Nobody had seen him summon his bayard, nor had they seen him transform it into a gun, nor had they seen him even aim to take his shot.

            “Anyone else?” Lance asked, voice wobbling only slightly, shifting the barrel of his gun back and forth, targets constantly changing.

            Nobody else dared to move.

            “Lance,” Allura said, and Lance’s eyes cut to her once in acknowledgment, before turning back to the group of diplomats, “keep that gun up. Keith, Hunk, Shiro…and Matt, escort Benelzar, Ravinski, and Jasthino out. If anyone else feels as strongly as they do, you can follow them out of the room. Anyone who attempts to take the life of a Paladin, or feels they would be better off _dead_ , or traded away to our _enemy_ , may still be welcome in the alliance, if not for the sake of their people, but has no place sitting at this table.”

            Allura waited, as the three diplomats in question stalked away from their seats, weapons clutched tightly in their hands—save for Benelzar, who’d just had theirs blown away by Lance—as they approached the door. Keith, Hunk, Shiro, and Matt all hefted their own weapons, gathering at the door in twos—Keith and Hunk on the left, and Shiro and Matt on the right.

            A few other diplomats followed them to the door, each one of them armed. Lance shot a wary look at Keith from across the room; Keith did nothing but tighten his jaw in response.

            “You’ll be led down to our shuttle bays, where you will leave at _once_.”

            “I don’t see how a difference in opinion justifies us getting kicked out,” one of the diplomats muttered.

            “A difference in opinion is one thing,” Shiro snapped, “but attempted assassination is another matter _entirely._ Instead of keeping it civil, screaming devolved into an attempted murder. This is for the safety of the rest of the alliance.”

            With that, he began ushering the group out the door, Keith, Hunk, and Matt following suit.

            As soon as the door shut, Allura turned to Coran. “Pull up the security feeds. Just in case.”

            “Yes, Princess.”

            Coran turned back to the computer, and a moment later, the list blinked out, and was replaced by several squares—video feeds from different sections of the castle. Allura watched it for a heartbeat, before she turned back to the remaining diplomats, as they sat back down. In total, seven had left, on top of their four escorts. It still left a decent amount of people at the table, but between their exits, and those who’d gone on the mission and never came back…it was less people than Allura had been hoping for.

            “Princess,” Chancellor Verna finally opened her mouth, “I can’t help but feel part of this whole situation is my responsibility.”

            Lance’s stomach twisted. He hadn’t seen the video feed, nor had he seen the moment itself in Keith’s memories—only references to it, thoughts of Chancellor Verna’s daughter, and Keith’s bitter hatred for her. Sold out, the same way Luce sold him out.

            Lance’s eyes found Luce, sitting a few seats away from Chancellor Verna, her face a placid mask. She made it up to Keith, yeah, but the way she sat now, like she hadn’t done anything wrong to begin with—like she hadn’t delayed his homecoming by who-knew-how-long by selling him out in the first place, by _creating_ a reason for her to rescue him…

            Lance scowled and looked away.

            “I understand and appreciate the sentiment, but the time for assigning blame is gone,” Allura responded. “We’ve wasted enough time at this meeting, and we still have our biggest concern to take care of: dealing with Lotor.”

            Allura looked around the room again. This time, no one raised their voice to interrupt. Everyone sat, patient, attentive. Allura suppressed the relieved smile trying to make its way across her face.

            “At our last meeting, we determined that assassinating Lotor would have been our course of action, if feasible, and if it happened that he were killed, power would fall to me, one way or another. Now that we’ve got Lotor cornered on Odonae, it’s time to reexamine our course of action, a course that was set up in a time of extreme turmoil with few options on the table, given the circumstances,” she continued.

            Still, no one spoke up.

            Pidge looked across the table at Lance and raised her eyebrows, but Lance shook his head, and dropped his gaze to his hands, which were folded on the table in front of him, as he leaned back in his chair.

            There were times he’d taken the shot at Lotor, times he’d contemplated viciously murdering him with his bare hands. Then there were others when he’d been too paralyzed to take the shot, times when he couldn’t bring himself to do it. The thought of taking another life…even Lotor’s…did it make him a coward, if he wasn’t sure whether or not he’d be able to do it, if it came down to it?

            “Lotor’s genocidal and unstable,” Luce spoke up. “I don’t see very many reasons to keep him alive.”

            A few other diplomats echoed her sentiment and voiced agreements, including Chancellor Verna and Queen Paveir. Shay, meanwhile, shifted in her seat, and exchanged glances with a few of the others sitting around her.

            “If we assassinate Lotor, there’s inevitably going to be a power struggle, whether or not you officially claim rule,” Ryner said, sitting up straighter in her seat. “There are presumably people all over the Empire who seek his power, and who wouldn’t hesitate to launch their own attacks against Voltron and the alliance.”

            “She’s got a point,” Tiva said, and scanned over the group gathered. “Commander Varx was one, and there were dozens like her with decent ranks at Central Command alone. I don’t know who else is out there around the universe _waiting_ for something like this to happen, and I don’t know what people they’ve rallied behind them in case they ever felt like, I dunno, waltzing into Central Command and staging a coup. If we keep Lotor alive, the power structure stays in balance, and we can buy ourselves time to figure out what to do.”

            “Until people realize he’s been imprisoned by Voltron and try to break him out or seize control,” Queen Paveir pointed out.

            “Lance, what do you think?” Shay interrupted.

            Lance lifted his head, eyes wide as he realized he’d been addressed, and everyone was turning to look at him.

            “I’m…not sure I’m qualified to answer this,” Lance said. “Inaction on my part is what got us into the whole mess, and then my bad decisions made things worse. I-I don’t think I should answer this.”

            “Um, if I may interrupt,” Coran spoke up then, and Lance could have cried in relief right then and there…until Coran continued. “Princess, it appears that two of the allied ships that departed from our hangar have set a course for Odonae…for the area we’ve been monitoring.”

            Allura’s responding look could have killed.

            “Pidge, Lance, get to the Lions. The rest of you—meeting adjourned, final decision will have to be made down there. You may come along for backup, or remain here.”

* * *

            The Paladins were fools for thinking that a simple crash would put Lotor out of commission.

            His ship was the finest the Galran fleet had to offer—of course, it had been _Zarkon_ _’s,_ originally, and Lotor had merely inherited it once his father wound up on his deathbed, but no matter, it had fallen into his hands anyway—and a crash like the one he sustained did minimal damage at the worst. A day or two spent tinkering with his controls had been enough to right his systems, after that mishap with the Red Paladin— _mishap,_ and nothing more, because a loss on Lotor’s part was inconceivable—and had his systems back up and running.

            If the tail end of the ship hadn’t been breached, he could’ve been off of this planet by last night.

            Unfortunately, the crash _had_ breached the tail end of his ship. It ripped a large gash through three sectors, three _important_ sectors, and an attempted flight would likely rip the rest of the ship to pieces, bit by painstaking bit. And if the ship fell apart mid-flight, and he happened to get _detected,_ perhaps even _pursued_ , well…

            So instead he’d been scavenging the nearby area. He’d set up a fake base inside of his ship, purposefully leaving the hatch down and assembling useless materials near the entryway, to make the place look like he’d been living in it for the last several quintants, while his real hut and concealed shuttle lay about a ten-dobosh walk away. He’d kept that distance to make sure his temporary home didn’t get caught up in the traps he’d spent time rigging.

            Traps that would be put to good use very soon, if the ships in the atmosphere were any indication.

            Lotor squinted. These ships were neither Altean nor Voltron Lions, nor were they from his own fleet. They tore through the increasing cloud cover, speeding for his location. Lotor retreated a few steps, back under the cover of a thick cluster of dilapidated shacks. He had no idea how long these ramshackle buildings had been out here, in this area of the wilderness. Perhaps people had once lived in them as scavengers, hunter-gatherers, nomads—whoever had taken up residency, they were long gone, the planet’s flora having long since overtaken splintering woods and weak concrete.

            Lotor stayed in one spot, hunkered down behind a crumbling section of what must’ve been a wall, underneath the caving roof.

            See, his crash had been strategic— _yes,_ of _course_ he’d been able to maneuver his ship to this area, and _no,_ it wasn’t merely a _happy accident_ —Lotor was too good for those. Crashing here placed his ship within eyesight of these shacks, shacks that would be blown to bits when his traps went off. Of course, anyone stumbling upon them would think he set up camp here, evidenced by the piles of useless supplies he’d laid out— _yes,_ he had _two_ fake bases, because no one would anticipate _that_ —and would be satisfied when it was destroyed.

            _Foolproof,_ you see.

            Lotor ducked down and peered over what might’ve once been a windowsill as the ships came down for a landing. Then, once the engines were cut, gangways lowered, and two figures exited the ships. One from one, one from the other. They both had weapons raised, and one called out his name, as if that would lure Lotor from his location.

            The one yelling sounded angry. Lotor rolled his eyes.

            As if he’d run right for the person who looked and sounded like they could have killed him right then and there. Yes, of course he’d do that.

            _Idiot,_ Lotor thought then, as the other one hissed for the first to quiet down.

            Lotor studied them, eyes narrowing. One of them had a scar, cutting deep into the left side of their face, while the other had four eyes. At certain angles, when the light caught them, two of them whited out completely, reflective. He was certain he’d seen these two before, and then it came to him: Lance’s gutsy little transmission.

            These were allies of the Paladins.

            They had to have been here on official Voltron business—why _else_ would they have come down? This was _bait,_ clearly. No matter that the one continued yelling, despite the other’s warnings, that they were here to have a discussion. Lotor had been swindled too many times, by innocent _discussions_ and simple _ideas_ and a Paladin with bright blue eyes—

            _Stop that._

            Lance was deceitful and spiteful and snarky and full of nothing but _contempt._ No matter how charming or handsome he may have seemed, no matter how well he could play up a romance in which he apparently wanted no part…

            “Emperor Lotor!” the white-eyed one shouted, again, and Lotor groaned.

            This was _not_ the confrontation he’d been hoping for.

* * *

            Lance hadn’t been in Blue’s cockpit, let alone her _hangar,_ since before he’d embarked for Tarvin Three.

            If he’d known then that it would have been the last time in two months he’d be flying Blue, that he’d be seeing her in all of her glory, inside of the castle, he might’ve savored it a little longer than he had—sprinting, sparing no precious seconds for sentimentalism.

            Her particle barrier fell the moment Lance entered the room, and though he should have been moving just as quickly now, he took tentative steps forward. Her energy had been a light breeze since he’d come out of the pod—gentle, soft—but now, as he made for her lowered jaw, toward the gangway, he felt all of it come upon him. Not like a blanket—not this time. He felt it wrap around each of his limbs, felt it surge through blood and bone, lifting him up instead of smothering him.

            “Hey, Blue.”

            Lance placed a hand on the very edge of Blue’s mouth, underneath her nose, as he began his ascent of the gangway, fingertips reverently brushing metal.

            The cockpit was already alive when Lance stepped inside, and eased himself into the pilot’s seat. He wrapped hesitant fingers around the levers at his sides, Blue purring at the touch as she closed the gangway and sat back on her haunches, poised to pounce into action.

            “You ready, girl?” Lance whispered.

            In response, Blue revved her engine. The hangar door started opening, and as soon as the gap was big enough, Blue shot forward, out into open sky. It took seconds for them to reach Odonae’s atmosphere; down below, Lance could make out cloud cover above a planet not unlike Earth, a sight that had his heart clenching. Of _course_ this had to be where Lotor crashed, because nothing in Lance’s life ever came to him easily.

            _Not now,_ Lance chided himself, and sighed as he switched on his comms, and Blue plunged into the atmosphere.

            _“I’ve got visual on Lotor’s ship.”_

            _“And what about it?”_

_“It looks…kinda like he set up camp? But the ship also looks like it could go functional. I mean…the damage isn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be.”_

            Keith and Shiro’s chatter did nothing to ease Lance’s nerves. He already knew Lotor had survived, but still, part of him had hoped that their energy signature scans and the other recon missions had been _wrong,_ or that sometime between the last ones and now, Lotor had died, and Lance wouldn’t have to worry about potentially making that decision later.

            _“Hey, guys? I’m getting energy signatures here…Jasthino and Ravinski are near the ship, but Lotor’s coming up in this like…what_ are _those things?_ _”_ Hunk interjected.

            _“…So is that a no-go on blowing up the ship?”_ Keith asked.

            _“Not as long as they’re in the blast radius,”_ Shiro answered.

            Keith muttered something under his breath just as Lance pulled in closer, close enough to spy the Yellow Lion idling in midair.

            _“So what’s our course of action?”_ Hunk asked.

            _“We move in on Lotor. He’s our focus. We keep an eye on Jasthino and Ravinski, just in case they try something, but Lotor is our ultimate goal,”_ Shiro responded. _“Allura, we never came to a conclusion on what we’re doing with him, did we?”_

            _“Negative,”_ Allura answered. _“We’ve got allies coming down with us. The decision may very well be made on the ground, mid-operation.”_

            _“Isn’t that like…I don’t know, that doesn’t seem like a good idea to me,”_ Hunk said. _“Like, are you telling me we’re gonna be deciding whether or not to kill him in the heat of the moment?”_

            _“Unfortunately,”_ came Allura’s reply.

            Out Lance’s left window, he viewed Green pulling into the atmosphere. Green sidled up alongside Blue, and a second later, Pidge’s face appeared in a direct feed to Lance’s right.

            _“You gonna be alright, dude?”_

            The lack of static coming in told Lance she’d switched to their private channel.

            “Gonna have to be,” Lance responded. “One way or another, this thing ends today.”

            _“Jeez, man, quoting movie taglines again?”_ Pidge said. _“On the one hand, glad to have you back, but on the other hand, that was_ incredibly _emo._ _”_

            Lance cracked the tiniest of smiles at that. “Yeah, well…someone’s rubbing off on me.”

            Pidge pretended to gag, and then smiled back at Lance. _“Good to hear. Now, let’s do this thing.”_

* * *

            Keith brought Red into formation with the other four Voltron Lions at Shiro’s orders, while Allura came down just ahead of them, in one of the castle’s ships. Red landed with a loud thud between Black and Blue. Keith’s jaw tightened as he glanced out the right-side window at Blue, slowly lowering her jaw to the ground the same way Red was.

            Just beyond this semicircle, Lotor lay in wait. His ship sat some fifty feet behind the Lions, while other allied ships began landing, surrounding Lotor’s ship. Keith found the fact that Lotor’s energy signal was spotted on the outer edge of this cropping of shacks, just on the outskirts of the woods instead of inside his ship, just a little bit suspicious. If he’d been out foraging, fine, that was one thing.

            But his energy signature hadn’t moved in the last fifteen minutes.

            He was _alive,_ the readings indicated that much. Alive and…what, _waiting?_ He had to have seen the Lions coming in, there was no realistic way he _hadn_ _’t,_ unless he was sleeping, but then again…

            _“Everyone stay on guard,”_ Shiro’s voice crackled over the comms, almost as though he could read Keith’s thoughts—or maybe he was just having the same ones. _“We’ve come too far for him to one-up us now. We know what he’s capable of, and we know he’s surrounded. Let’s end this.”_

            Keith’s hands curled tighter around the levers at his sides. Something about _ending it_ set him on edge, like the more they said it, the more they would jinx things. Or the more likely it became that it _would_ end…just with people hurt.

            Or dead.

            _“Alright team, let’s move,”_ Shiro said, after another heartbeat, and Pidge, Hunk, and Allura murmured agreements.

            Thankfully, no one said a word about Keith or Lance’s silence.

            Keith released his levers and stood up, sucked in a breath, summoned his bayard. He flexed his fingers before he curled them tighter around the handle and started down the gangway of Red’s jaw. Around him, the others were descending from their Lions, while Allura waited just outside of the ship she’d taken.

            The team met up at Allura’s ship, and gathered as one group. Allura called orders over the comms for half of the members of the Voltron Alliance to remain in their ships, targets locked on Lotor’s ship, while the other half deboarded and moved in on Jasthino and Ravinski, prowling about the area near Lotor’s ship.

            Keith paid them little mind. He watched Lance carefully; Lance took his time moving away from Blue and joining the group. His eyes scanned the available spaces, before settling on Keith, eyebrows raising fractionally, mouth curving downward. It occurred to Keith then exactly what had happened last time they’d been on a mission together, the thoughts likely running through Lance’s mind at that moment.

            Keith stole a glance at the others. Shiro and Allura were coordinating defense patterns over the comms, and Hunk and Pidge were waiting for orders. So Keith backtracked, until he was at Lance’s side. He nudged Lance in the shoulder, but ultimately didn’t touch him otherwise—not until Lance looked sidelong at him, and reached a hand over.

            “We’ve got this,” Keith murmured reassuringly, as he interlaced their fingers. He said nothing else—he could already feel murderous intent rising, the more he thought about Lotor, and everything Lance and the team had been subjected to in the last two months.

            It would take everything in him _not_ to lose his shit the moment he saw Lotor again, in the flesh.

            A moment that would happen far too soon for Keith’s liking.

            He and Lance rejoined the others. Pidge and Hunk moved over, and made enough room for the two of them to squeeze in-between them—Pidge at Lance’s left, and Hunk on Keith’s right.

            Keith’s teammates were a grounding presence—no matter what happened, they were to move as one unit, to fight as one unit. If they were ambushed, they’d be together, at least, and between the six of them, on top of their other allies, they should’ve been able to figure something out.

            No one would be leaving unconscious, dragged onto a Galra ship between two soldiers.

            “Lotor’s energy signature still hasn’t moved,” Shiro pointed out, turning to the youngest four Paladins now. “This is our chance.”

            “Are we taking him in alive, or are we going for an assassination?” Hunk asked.

            Shiro and Allura traded indecipherable looks, while Lance squeezed Keith’s hand. Keith squeezed him back, and neither one eased up as they waited for a response.

            “Truthfully…we’re still not sure,” Allura answered. “Given everything…it would be ideal to take him in alive, if we can, but…depending on what happens…”

            “We already settled on killing before, and he’s been pretty unkillable,” Shiro said. “Even if we tried to kill him, it doesn’t guarantee he’d actually die.”

            Whether or not it was an attempt at humor was lost on the other Paladins. They glanced at each other, and then nodded slowly, Hunk being the only one to voice an agreement on behalf of everyone else. Shiro and Allura swept eyes over the group in front of them; Shiro opened his mouth like he was going to say something, and then closed it, expression hardening.

            “Whatever happens, happens,” Allura said. “We’ve got to move while we still have the advantage.”

            And so they did. Shiro and Allura took the lead, with the four youngest Paladins behind them in one line. Keith finally let his bayard transform, into a sword. Lance unlaced their fingers and allowed his rifle to materialize, while Hunk’s cannon appeared in his hand, and Pidge’s katar formed in a burst of green light. Around them, they picked up on the sounds of allies shouting, calling orders to each other. Lance tensed up nearly every time a shout was particularly loud, or a weapon discharged.

            Keith’s blood went from simmering to boiling.

            “Closing in,” Pidge murmured from Lance’s side. “Get ready.”

* * *

            Lance didn’t count his final battle aboard Central Command as a legitimate confrontation. Hell, he’d barely even gone at Lotor—Keith and the team had, but not him. The one shot had been a fluke, and during that battle, he’d been running on adrenaline and very little sleep.

            He realized now, with every shaking step, legs growing weaker beneath him as the team arrived at the outcropping of shacks, that he could not pull the trigger. Not even if Lotor stood in front of him, arms spread wide, an open target. Not even if Lotor straight-up _told_ him to shoot. His hands trembled where they held his gun, finger falling off to the side of the trigger.

            No matter what happened, he couldn’t bring himself to take another life. Not this personally.

            If it came down to it, someone else would have to make the killing blow.

            “Well, isn’t this adorable!”

            Lance could have vomited right then and there. As it was, his legs nearly gave out completely. He stumbled, and Keith’s hand flew out, gripped his arm, steadied him, while Pidge inched closer on his other side. Hunk moved in near Keith, while Shiro and Allura took a step back, closer to their charges, as Lotor appeared amongst the rubble of a shack completely overtaken by nature. He spread his palms, grin wide, but nobody missed the sword, sheathed on his belt.

            “Lotor,” Allura addressed him bitterly, eyes narrowed, staff aimed at him.

            “Allura, it’s been a while! A few quintants, right?”

            For having six armed Paladins in front of him, and a whole squad of armed allies swarming the area behind him, Lotor seemed far too nonchalant. It was the same way he’d been when the Paladins infiltrated Central Command, when Keith and Hunk had entered the arena, and Lance had had too few guards on him—

            _Trap._

            Did the others sense it? They had to.

            “Lotor, we’ve got the area surrounded,” Shiro said, voice calm and measured. “If you come with us right now, there’ll be no need for fighting. We can end this on a peaceful note.”

            This was typically about the time in Lance’s favorite movies when the villain would either fake out the heroes, or pull some bullshit. Usually these decisions went two ways: accompanied by some long, overdramatic speech, either about how the villain has decided to reform themselves, only to end with the word _sike_ , or about how they’d never change, and the heroes were the ones in the wrong, and now they’d pay once and for all; _or,_ in the rare instances where the villain was _smart_ , they’d go about their merry way in as few words as possible.

            Lotor went for that second option. He smiled and raised his hands in the air and stepped forward. Hunk lifted his cannon, and Keith took a step closer to Lance, relinquishing his grip on Lance’s arm, if only to allow Lance better movement to maneuver his weapon.

            It was about that time that an explosion went off a short distance behind the Lions.

            The ground shook as shrieking went up. Lance whipped his head around, eyes widening as he caught sight of Lotor’s ship, blown to pieces, allies screaming. Bodies on the ground, shrapnel of the ship still in the air, lodging into trees and shacks—

            And Lotor was running.

            And Keith, naturally, was hot on his tail.

            Lance shook off his shock and took off after them, while the team still tried to gather their bearings.

            “Keith! Keith, wait—!”

            “No time!” Keith yelled over his shoulder.

            Lance couldn’t bring himself to risk the glance over his shoulder, to see if the rest of the team was following. All he could focus on was Keith, the way his feet pounded the ground, the way he raised his sword. The gap between them was widening, little by little, the further they ran, and Lance willed his legs to move faster.

            Neither of them had a clue where Lotor was going, and he’d already rigged one explosion.

            “Keith!” Lance shouted again.

            Thunder rumbled overhead, and the first drops of…not water, it couldn’t have been _water,_ but something like it, started falling. A few drops splattered on Lance’s visor, and all he could think was _this is not the time._

            He didn’t need rain obscuring his vision, didn’t need rain making it harder to run. Didn’t need the team chasing after Lotor into an obvious trap.

            _“Lance, Keith, do either of you read?”_

            Pidge sounded nervous over the comms, and Lance added that to the list of things that he absolutely _did not need at this very second in time, thank you._

            “Pidge, I’m listening, what’s going on?”

            Maybe Lance’s voice was shaking a little, but it could’ve been worse. As far as holding himself together went, Lance would’ve liked to think he was doing a fine job. He was still on his feet, he was still coherent, and the liquid in front of his eyes wasn’t his own tears.

            _“Shiro, Hunk, and I are getting to the Lions. Allura’s with the rest of the alliance to do damage control, and…fucking—people didn’t survive that explosion.”_

            Realistically, Lance expected it.

            He still stumbled to a halt.

            “What?”

            _“Ravinski and Jasthino both got caught up in it, some of our other allies got caught up in it…a lot of them are—h-hurt—”_

            The way Pidge’s voice tripped over that one told Lance all he needed to know, his gun weighing more heavily in his hands as he lifted his eyes back to where Keith and Lotor were still running. The distance was too great for Lance to cover now—not unless Keith and Lotor stopped.

            “What’s our course of action?” Lance asked, and made himself start running again, heart pounding harder against his chest.

            _“…Allura said everyone’s settled for assassination.”_

            Keith must have heard it over the comms. Up ahead, Keith let a scream tear from his throat, and Lance watched as he lunged and closed the distance between him and Lotor. Lotor wasted no time bringing his sword up to block, and then swept Keith’s legs out from underneath him. With the ground slick as it was, Keith went down.

            _No—no, please—_

Lance’s feet slid underneath him as he closed in. Lotor tackled Keith as yards became mere feet, and feet became inches. Keith and Lotor rolled, and Lance threw himself into the melee, bayard shrinking as he threw hands around Keith’s waist and pulled him off of Lotor. All three of them were shrieking, and Lance was dimly aware of the other Paladins trying to check in, over the comms, frantic as all hell.

            “Lance— _what the fuck are you doing?!_ ”

            Keith struggled against him, his strength enough to pull himself and Lance back to their feet—Keith in front, Lance behind him, desperately trying to pull him back as Lotor got up and kept running.

            “Don’t,” Lance choked out. “Keith, _don_ _’t._ ”

            “He’s getting away! He’s _right there!_ ”

            “Please don’t.”

            Lance pressed his whole body against Keith’s and buried his face into the slope between Keith’s neck and shoulders, while Keith still strained, still pulled.

            “ _Lance_ —”

            “Don’t go back there.”

            Lance was borderline whimpering now, and the rain came down harder. Up ahead, Lotor stopped, turned back to look at the two of them. Keith froze in Lance’s arms, and on his next breath, it was like all the fight went out of him. He slackened, legs trembling, and it took everything in Lance to hold both of them up.

            “I know you don’t want to,” Lance whispered. “I know you’re better than that.”

            Even through closed eyes, Lance saw the flash of red light that told him Keith’s bayard returned to standard form, and then dematerialized. Then Keith brought hands up, wrapped them around Lance’s arms, sank into whatever warmth Lance could provide against the chill of the rain.

            When Keith started quaking, Lance held him tighter, and pretended not to hear the stifled little gasp that escaped him.

            Lance still didn’t let go, not even when he heard Lotor stalking toward them, chuckling darkly, something that had a shiver racing down Lance’s spine. He bit his lip and made himself open his eyes, made himself raise his head, made himself give Lotor the best puppy-dog eyes he could muster, just as Lotor raised his sword.

            Their gazes met, and Lance held it, even as ships raced overhead, as something dark streaked across the sky, barely visible through the falling rain.

            Lance didn’t look away until Shiro shot out of Black’s open jaw, until he saw the black bayard run Lotor through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> epilogue left, i'll spill my feelings there. may or may not be up before midnight, depending on how the afternoon goes
> 
> tryna get this wrapped before s6 drops in 12 hours :P
> 
> see ya in the next one


	37. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance needs time to process.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow i can't believe the end is here, but i'll talk more in the end note

Epilogue

            _“Vrepit Sa, Emperor Lance, my love.”_

            Lance kept seeing it: the blood, bubbling over the sides of Lotor’s mouth as he laughed, as Shiro wrenched his bayard free; the malice in Lotor’s eyes as he appraised Keith and Lance, both stunned; the haggard rise and fall of Shiro’s chest as he stared at Lotor’s dying form; their allies, slowly moving in on the scene; Hunk and Pidge, deboarding their Lions and sprinting for their teammates, while Allura stumbled onto the scene, she and Shay supporting an injured Matthew Holt; the rain, washing everything gray.

            He drew his knees to his chest as he sat in the corner of the observation deck and took in another shuddering breath.

            He hadn’t spoken since it all happened. Allies who stopped to inquire about what his new status might’ve possibly meant were brushed away, comforting hands from teammates were shrugged off. He still hadn’t even changed out of his armor.

            The flightsuit had kept most of the rain away from him, kept him dry, but the chill still reached Lance’s bones.

            He’d sat idly by, for the most part, during the meeting afterward, as Allura announced Lotor as officially dead to the other members of the alliance. She laid out their agenda going forward: make some proclamation to the universe that Lotor had been killed, and that there was already someone else in power—Voltron, was all the alliance agreed upon—not Lance alone, not Allura, not any one of them, but _Voltron_ —and then track down those who’d aided in the whole mess, work on restoring whatever planets that they could.

            Chancellor Verna volunteered to aid in tracking down her rogue daughter, the one who’d sold Keith out.

            Luce volunteered the Obscurities to start working on the situation on Ven, a penance for her hand in the chaos.

            All around the room, allies standing up to take part in relief and damage control, while all Lance could bring himself to do was jot down notes for his own plans, and then slide them to Allura afterward, without speaking a word.

            _Visit Nizure. Visit Denika._

            Visit every single planet he’d attacked, every planet he’d had a hand in destroying.

            Visit the people whose loved ones he’d helped rip away.

            He didn’t stick around long enough to watch Allura read it, or give a response. He didn’t wait for anyone to catch up with him, and broke out into a run when he heard Keith try to follow. He didn’t stop until he got on the deck, until the door shut. Then he collapsed in the corner, listening to the sounds of rain pouring, watching drops streak down the windows.

            He hadn’t moved for hours.

            He still didn’t move when the door opened with a quiet hiss, didn’t move when footsteps padded quietly against the floor, didn’t move when Keith sat down next to him, just a few inches of space between them, and drew up his own knees.

            Keith didn’t speak for a long time; he turned his head to the side and watched Lance, before turning away, returning his gaze to the windows, and letting his head thud gently against the wall.

            “Thank you,” he finally whispered, while a lightning flash illuminated the room.

            Lance pursed his lips. Furrowed his brow. Didn’t look at Keith as he responded, quietly, “For what?”

            Keith ran a hand through his hair, eyes tracking one of the raindrops down the window of the deck, watching as it merged with others, slipped down the glass faster, fell all the way to the bottom and disappeared.

            “Stopping me,” Keith answered, and let his hand fall back to his knees.

            “Yeah, well,” Lance took a breath, “couldn’t let you do that to yourself.”

            He closed his mouth, and then opened it again, like he wanted to say more. But instead, he loosed another breath, and finally lifted his head, turned to look at Keith.

            Then he dropped his head again.

            “Except now it’s on Shiro,” Lance added, quieter.

            Keith waited a heartbeat, another. Studied Lance’s profile, the tightening of his jaw and the frown on his face and the dullness in his eyes.

            “I talked to Shiro about that, actually,” Keith said, and Lance inclined his head slightly. He looked at Keith out of the corner of his eye. “He…he said he would’ve done it again. And he’s glad you stopped me, too. He’d rather himself than one of us…something about being through enough. You know, the whole Dad attitude.”

            Lance’s frown only deepened, and he let loose a sigh.

            “I still…I still wish I could’ve done it. I _should_ _’ve_ done it. But…I…it’s not even…”

            “It’s alright,” Keith said. “I get it.”

            He reached a hand over, and let it hover just above Lance’s arm. Lance looked at him, looked at his hand, and then scooted over. He let Keith drape the arm around him, let his head fall against Keith’s shoulder.

            They sat in silence for a long time. Keith’s head eventually found its way on top of Lance’s, and he reached his free hand over, tugging at one of Lance’s hands until it fell into his lap, just so he could start playing with his fingers. Just as Lance had, much earlier in the day, what felt like a lifetime ago, Keith started tapping—in patterns, at random. Started brushing his fingers over the fabric of Lance’s flightsuit.

            “Where do we go after this?” Lance asked, so quietly Keith almost didn’t hear him.

            _To sleep,_ Keith almost quipped, but caught himself before he could.

            “I don’t know,” is what he said out loud. “There’s…a long road ahead of us.”

            Lotor being dead didn’t necessarily mean the war was over—plenty of pockets of resistance still existed, and others would crop up the moment they heard that Voltron was in charge. Even if the war came to a close, there was plenty of damage control to be done, plenty of planets to visit, plenty of meetings to sit through…even getting back to Earth, whenever that day came, would be an ordeal. And that didn’t even begin to cover their own journeys, the ties they’d made in space, people yet to be found…

            “But what I _do_ know,” Keith said, and ceased playing with Lance’s fingers, just to lace their hands together, “is that we’re gonna get through it, and we’re gonna get through it together. You remember what we talked about? A while ago?”

            “That’s vague,” Lance muttered.

            “You know exactly what I’m talking about,” Keith said, “but if you really want me to spell it out for you: we were in bed. And we were talking about the future, and what happens after the war. You said that once this was all over, you wanted to date me. Like, really date me, and see if this would work out, and be my boyfriend, and all the gooey romantic stuff. I said I wanted that, too. And that hasn’t changed.”

            Keith’s throat bobbed as he swallowed past the building lump, and squeezed Lance’s hand on reflex.

            “I know _we_ _’ve_ changed,” he continued on, “but…my feelings haven’t. The road ahead is long and it’s bumpy and…and I don’t want to travel it without you.”

            Lance shifted against Keith; he raised his head, and he and Keith locked gazes. Then, slowly, Lance let his head fall, until his forehead was pressed against Keith’s. Keith’s arm moved, until his hand was resting on the back of Lance’s neck.

            “Travel that road with me,” Keith whispered, and squeezed their still-intertwined hands.

            Lance tilted his chin up and pressed his lips against Keith’s, softly, slowly. He steadied himself by placing a hand on Keith’s cheek, a hand Keith leaned into.

            “I will,” Lance breathed out when their mouths parted. He drew back slightly and started nodding, tears slipping down his cheeks. Keith broke their hands apart and brought his hand to Lance’s face, wiping the tears away with a stroke of his thumb.

            “You and me,” he said. “We’ve gotten this far.”

            There were planets to visit, people to repay, pieces to put back together. They had a team to fall back together with, allies to fix their relations with, their own personal demons to overcome.

            _Fake it till you make it._

            It was a mantra that got Lance into the Garrison, got him to fighter class, got him into space, got him through hell at Central Command. It could get him through this, too.

            Looking at Keith now, though…maybe it wouldn’t have to.

**_End of Part III_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...wow, i actually finished it before s6
> 
> is it a little open-ended? yeah. is it finished for now? yeah. could i come back to it? possibly, but not in the foreseeable future. (i had a dream somewhere between chapter 30 and now about writing another fic following the aftermath and deadass bolted up in bed shouting "I CAN'T WRITE ANOTHER," so there's that)
> 
> and now,
> 
> tHANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR READING THIS
> 
> thanks to those who have joined somewhere along the way, and thanks to those who were here all the way back when _where people go to die_ was still called "the untitled lotor misunderstand the concept of a hospital au"
> 
> thank you to everyone who's created fanart for this series, including elaine for her beautiful piece from chapter 11, located [here](https://elaine-art.tumblr.com/post/174855217477/im-doing-my-best-and-i-hope-you-can-forgive-the) on her art tumblr!!
> 
> thank you to everyone who's commented or even just read along silently for your ongoing support!! thank you to those who have promoted this series on tumblr and insta and other platforms!!
> 
> thank you for everyone who's put up with sporadic updates, cliffhangers, chapter 17 of dd, the opening of chapter 23, and every twist and turn this series has taken.
> 
> most of all, thank you to [beatrice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/periphvna), my best friend, for putting up with everything i've thrown at her over the course of this series. she's the reason this whole thing started, and she's the reason it got anywhere. thank you so much for your support, thank you for having conversations with me at three AM about headcanons and lion facetime, thank you for putting up with me throwing out-of-context snippets at you just to get your blood pressure up, thank you for EVERYTHING. this series would not be what it is without you. love you <3
> 
> hooooly shit...wow, it's done
> 
> WOW
> 
> I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT MY NEXT FANFIC WILL BE (that's a lie yes I do), but if you want updates, consider   
> a) subbing  
> b) reading along with my chatfic, [squad up](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12199533/chapters/27702090) (which is actually set to end tonight...but SU readers...keep ur eyes peeled)  
> c) following me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/nerdyspaceace) or [instagram](https://www.instagram.com/nerdyspaceace/)  
> d) joining my [voltron discord](https://discord.gg/5XEQTbZ)!!
> 
> again, THANK YOU SO MUCH for being on this wild ride with me, i never thought this series would get as long as it did, but i'm glad. thanks, y'all, and see ya next time ;P


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